2016 News

10TH ANNUAL CAPS EVENT

Submitted Article

On August 27 2016, the Committee for Atascadero Public Schools (CAPS) celebrated its tenth annual Evening for Education at the Springhill Suites. Over two hundred community members attended the event which included a night of fabulous dining, casino games, and silent and live auction bidding. Due to the community's overwhelming generosity, CAPS will be awarding $90,000 to AUSD teachers and classrooms this year, bringing the total dollars granted over the last ten years to almost $600,000!

Many thanks to the CAPS Committee members for organizing this entertaining and successful event. Thank you to Lori Bickel and Kathy Peterson, Co-Chair Persons, Nicole Hider, Secretary, Mike Bickel, Treasurer, Melanie Karp, Live Auction and Grants, Joanne Rogoff and Susie McCormick-Lilley , Silent Auction, Angie Erb and Kathy Brown, Decor , Hayley Mattson, Publicity, Robyn Schmidt, Sponsorship, Jerry Tanimoto and Glenda Highland, Casino, Jessica Hamilton, Invitations and catalogs.

On behalf of CAPS, we wish to thank the following sponsors:

Platinum - In Kind Sponsors - K-Jon's Fine Jewelry, Opolo Winery

$2,000 Gold Sponsors - Atascadero District Teachers Association, Atascadero Unified School District, Wysong Construction, Pambrun Bracing, BHE Renewables, Topaz Solar Farms, Ravatt Albrecht

$1,500 Copper Sponsors - Greg Malik Real Estate Group

$1,000 Silver Sponsors -Solarponics , Inc., RSH Construction, Inc., Kathy Peterson, Debbie Arnold, 5th District Supervisor - Heritage Oaks Bank - The Sign Place -Above Grade Engineering, Inc.

$500 Bronze Sponsors - Atascadero Glass, Kitchell, Atascadero Greyhound Foundation, Andre Morris and Buttery, Wayne and Diana Cooper, K-Man Cycle and Run, Rocky Canyon Kennels, George Galvan, Connexion Software, Inc., Mike Obayashi

$250 Friend of CAPS! - CoastHills Credit Union, Atascadero Pet Center, Atascadero Police Association, Jim Patterson, Lynelle Newitt-Hollarman , Tom and Iris Thompson

$100 Casino Table Sponsor - Melanie and Tim Karp, Idler's Home, Modica Financial and Tax, Susie and Bob Lilley, Drs Chalker & Peterson, The Mattson Family, Ray M. Buban, EA Financial and Tax Service, Primary Eyecare, California Meridian Insurance Services, Inc., Jerry Tanimoto

CAPS is dedicated to providing teacher grants to support educational programs for all Atascadero public schools. As always, the grants that teachers wrote for this year were varied and interesting! Here are just a few: one school will get a greenhouse. Another school asked for musical instruments. Three elementary schools ordered Lego Robotics kits. CAPS is funding 14 field trips From the Aquarium at Avila Beach to the San Jose Tech Museum to La Purisima Mission to San Francisco. CAPS purchased 65 Chromebooks sending some to almost every school. There is a variety of PE equipment including Pickle Ball! CAPS purchased headphones, cameras, lots of engineering equipment, art supplies, and even a truck load of mulch. The grant materials are mostly ordered by now and should start being delivered very soon. If you check out our website in a couple of weeks you should be able to see photos of all the teachers who received grants along with a list of what they received.

The absolute best thing about the event this year was seeing the amazing support that we got from the community. If you go to our website: atascaderocaps.org, you can see the LONG list of our donors and sponsors. These people helped us make the amazing auction items that helped us be so successful. What a great place to live!

Fall means tarantulas and CAPS

Well , I saw my first tarantula yesterday crossing our driveway near the house. I usually see them up on the main road, coming from the hills and traveling toward our driveway. This fellow was moving right along on his mission, whatever that was. Tarantulas always herald Fall for me even though the season is marked as beginning Sept. 22 on my calendar. Personally it's much more fun to go by a big, black, furry fella than a calendar from Staples!

Fall means school starts and that means that the Committee for Atascadero Public Schools (CAPS) presents its signature fundraiser, "An Evening for Education." They did just that last Saturday night at SpringHill Suites Marriott Atascadero. I was invited to join Jeannie and Greg Malik at their table with Linda and Tom Zirk, Dennis Eaton, Shirley Summers, Joanne Peters, Melanie Karp and Francia Foss.

I remember when CAPS was started by a local woman, Colleen Palermo, 10 years ago. As a parent, Colleen saw a need for an organization to raise funds in order to offer grants and support for educational programs in all Atascadero public schools. She encouraged other parents to join in the effort, and as a result CAPS has answered over $500,000 in grant requests since the first event in 2007. Generous sponsors help cover all of the overhead costs for the evening, allowing 100 percent of the money raised at the event to go directly to the schools through the grant program.

I know the committee was hoping to raise at least $100,000 that evening, from a silent and live auction, a raffle , and casino games. And guess what? I talked with Melanie Karp, a CAPS committee member and she announced that they raised $105,000 at the event.

"Our community is so generous and supportive. CAPS members are proud to be able to help students, teachers, and schools in Atascadero with grant dollars. We are also excited to be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the organization," she said. Donn Clickard acted as Master of Ceremonies and the ever-popular Doug Filipponi was the auctioneer. He loves to "work the crowd" to bring in lots of money, and he does it very well. Thanks go to both of them for helping to raise all that money for education!

Kathy Peterson and Lori Bickel co-chaired the event with help from a great committee. Great evening! I'm making everyone involved in CAPS my "Community Heroes" for this week. Congratulations, and keep up your good work!