“SOVA” is a Hebrew word that means “eat and be satisfied.” Much more than a food pantry, JFS “SOVA” provides free groceries and an array of supportive services to nearly 12,000 individuals of all ages, ethnicities and religions each month. At SOVA’s three comprehensive service centers in the Los Angeles area, we offer:

Sustenance: Free nutritious food that nourishes families, helps children perform better in school, and strengthens the elderly.

Opportunity: Free on-site services including legal advocacy, job counseling, nutrition counseling, food stamp enrollment, information and referrals, case management, and counseling.

Volunteerism: Hundreds of people of all ages work together each week to support the program and the community.

Advocacy: We reach out to the community and legislators in support of vulnerable members of society in need of food, opportunity, and social services.

Main Office: 16439 Vanowen Street Van Nuys, CA 91406 818-988-7682 http://www.jfsla.org/SOVA

We will be having another cooks week off fundraiser!

Watch for the flyer and help support your child’s school. Not only will our school earn $2 from every flyer collected (minimum purchase of a salad or pizza or sandwich required), but we’ve lowered the class requirements to try to let the kids earn more pizza parties. Bring in 8, 10, or 12 flyers (multiple flyers per family allowed) and earn different sized pizza parties for the classroom. 100 flyers were turned in last event, but if we get 200 flyers turned in, our staff and teachers will win the HUGE 54″ x 54″ pizza experience! Mother’s Day doesn’t need to stop on Sunday, give her a couple of nights off from cooking and help support our school and win a pizza party for the classroom! We had 5 classrooms win last time and the other classrooms really wanted to earn the pizza experience. This will be the last chance for the school year!

Big Mama’s and Papa’s Pizzeria
Zelzah and Chatsworth
(818) 368-1111

Download: May 2012 flyer

Through donations and matching funds from the Wasserman Foundation, she was able to complete her project and receive a new easel from Lakeshore Learning for her classroom.  This included level 1 and level 2 site words as well as Draw and Write Journals.

Mrs Kimmel: I have gathered many many years of music CDs in the classroom and have gone through multiple CD players. Fiddling with the CDs is cumbersome and sometimes my old CDs do not work properly, as they skip or do not play. It would be really great to switch over to newer technology and not have to worry about lost or scratched CDs anymore.

Having an iPod in the classroom will allow us to transfer our CD music and save time looking for specific songs.  We are most excited about being able to download a variety of educational videos and apps that will allows the students to learn in a whole new way.

This stage in their lives and their parents is such a critical one in the development of language. Music enhances language and is the key to ones soul! Let them sing aloud and not skip a beat again! Thank you!

Join us for another Castlebay Cook’s Night Out fundraising event!  Thursday, February 23 from 4pm to 10pm at Jersey Mike’s Subs in Northridge (Tampa and Nordhoff Street).  The Junior Chef Experience will allow children to build their own Jersey Mike’s Sub sandwich and have a tour of the kitchen.

Jersey Mike’s Subs
19350 Nordhoff Street

This restaurant location is owned and operated by Mr Weintraub, a longtime supporter of Castlebay, and also the husband of our own Mrs Weintraub, a 3rd grade teacher at our school.
Download: event flyer

Unfortunately, funding from the Wasserman Foundation has run out sooner than expected and remaining gift cards are no longer redeemable (learn more). This also includes those cards obtained at Starbucks.

However, at Castlebay, 39 teacher projects totaling over $20,000 was funded!! The Wasserman Foundation provided about $9,900 in partner funding with donors giving $10,000 (mostly in gift cards, again from the Wasserman Foundation). It’s estimated we redeemed about 674 of the $15 gift cards which is an incredible 83% redemption (the school was given 810 gift cards).

Thanks to immediate mobilizing, tactical planning, and implementation between teachers and our team of parent volunteers, we were able to help 90% of the teachers and resource staff at Castlebay upload, submit, and eventually fund their projects. Of course, we owe our amazing parents a huge debt of gratitude for trusting the team with your emails and granting us permission to submit them on your behalf. As always, our parents, teachers, and staff worked together to attain the best results given the small window of time to post and fund these projects.

View our results on our Castlebay Donors Choose page.

Be sure to check our classroom projects list. It’s being updated daily (sometimes a few times in a day). Three more teacher projects were completed today including Mrs Lingard’s, Mrs Dorfman’s and Mrs Ashcraft’s projects. And a couple of new projects were approved.

(original message)
Thanks to the Wasserman Foundation, starting on Monday, January 23rd Starbucks stores in Los Angeles will distribute $10 DonorsChoose.org gift cards with purchase, while supplies last. These gift cards can be used to support our classroom projects. Be sure to check that page as it’s being updated regularly.

The length of time cards are available in stores will vary depending on the store. For the best chance of receiving a card, we recommend visiting a local Starbucks early on the 23rd. They estimate cards will be available somewhere between 2-6 days.

A purple flyer went home the week before winter break asking parents to either provide their email address or ask for their $15 gift card so we can fund more teacher projects. We only have until February 2, 2012 to use these cards from the Wasserman Foundation so please return your purple sheet to the office as soon as possible, or use the new electronic form.

More teacher projects should be going up shortly. Visit the Castlebay Donors Choose page for the full list of our teacher projects, including funded projects. You may also search http://www.donorschoosela.org for Castlebay to see the current projects up (funded projects won’t show up on the search).

However Donors Choose still is available to support teacher projects. Funding can be made in the traditional ways (credit cards, PayPal etc). Check our school web site for projects that were funded through this program. You may also search for them at DonorsChooseLA.org (but projects which are funded are removed from their site).