Harvest Festival Success!

The Harvest Festival was a great success this year, thanks to all the hard work from all the parents and teachers and kids who participated!

To All,

I just wanted to say good job and thanks to everyone who helped organize and volunteered at the Mark Keppel Harvest Festival. Every person that I came in contact with that day had nothing but positive comments to say about the event. Nothing beats the sound of the children's laughter and the smiles on their faces. It also feels good to know the money raised will benefit our kids. I used all my tickets on the food! Every bite of pizza, mouthful of popcorn, lick of cotton candy, and crunch of shaved ice, increased my waist size along with funds for our 5th and 6th grade committees. We have a great school staff, dedicated moms, and some manly Dads! Thanks for what you do.

Speaking of "Dads", We had some special dads that stepped up and made things happen. This year, the carnival games did not have to be borrowed or rented because of some creative, hardworking fathers. I would like to personally thank and acknowledge the dads that were there helping with the building, set up, tear down, and anything else that needed to be done that day. The games built are quality fun games that will continue to be used for many years to come.

I know there were other dads out there who worked or called me to volunteer their time. I was unable to get everyones name. If I didn't mention you, I apologize. If anybody knows of somebody that helped and is not listed, please speak up. They deserve it.

Tony Iezza - Tony helped build the Splish Splash Sponge Toss game and was there all day helping with set up, run errands, and tear down.

Anthony Zierhut - Anthony painted the cool looking Sponge Toss game and the Happy Feet Shuffle Board game. His family also helped paint the Ring Toss Game.

Kris Denton - Kris built and painted the Cover The Spot Game, and the Pluck a Duck.

Earl Cuza - Earl was there all day. He helped set up, run errands for the food volunteers, and helped tear down.

John Pingry - John helped paint the ring toss game, and was there all day setting up, running errands, and tear down.

Ernie Gilbert - Ernie helped with the tear down.

Brian Hall - Brian built and painted the For Shore Fishing Game. I caught Dr. Mason cutting in line trying to play this one.

Peter Laue - Peter built the Basketball Toss.

Thanks again for making this event successful and for making our school a better place for our children.

Regards,
Andre Clarizio
_____

I have to chime in as well. The event went so smoothly this year -- What great weather we had and having Toll and Hoover kids there to support us was the best! The carnival games are awesome, awesome, awesome....we used to have to borrow these from other schools, but no longer! They are beautiful and will be enjoyed by many for years to come! What makes this event so special is the community spirit of everyone working together -- I could not believe I was wrapping up before dark this year, and that is due in such a large part to the tremendous amount of parent volunteers we had helping us out all day -- Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!! Honestly, this was the smoothest fair I can remember! I am grateful to my office staff for selling tickets, Lise for her organizational skills and beautiful flyers, and staff support manning some of the booths....It was a great event -- and.....
For the record -- I did not cut in line at the fair -- I am the defender against all line cutters -- However, have you seen me drive? --Oh well, that's another story!

Mary Mason
Principal
_____

I too want to thank you all, dads and moms too, for all of your hard work for Keppel. You are the reason that this school is so great. The Harvest Festival was not only successful but fun for everyone because of your love and dedication. On a personal note, I can't thank you all enough for all of the support and guidance in organizing the event. KEPPEL PARENTS ROCK!

Lise Sondergaard
Assistant Principal
_____

Hello Everyone!! Thank you all for such a successful and fun Harvest Festival. With all your support and donations, we raised funds for our arts and music programs for the kids. This year 5th and 6th grade committees also raised almost $500 each to support all the great things the kids get to do at the end of their last year at Keppel. Student Council also raised a few hundred dollars for school related activities. We already have lots of great ideas to make more money next year at the Harvest Festival. Selling presale tickets really helped the beginning of the carnival start smoothly. Thank you students and parents for waiting patiently in the very short ticket lines!! So remember to buy your tickets early next year!! See you all at Barnes and Noble Night in November!!

Joanne Pingry
MKS Treasurer

Stepping Stone Players Free Ticket Giveaway!

We would like to say a big "THANK YOU!" to the Stepping Stone Players, for giving away about 3000 free tickets to their recent production of Oliver!

The free tickets were given to Keppel, Toll, and Incarnation students, in an effort to expose young people to theatre. The cast of Oliver! also included 29 students from various community schools.

Thanks, Stepping Stone Players!

Art By (and for) Our Kids!

5th Grade Autumn Leaves

As we get ready for our annual fundraiser- The Harvest Festival (be there, or live in regret), I'd like to take a minute to congratulate everyone involved with our last big fundraiser, June's open house/ Silent Auction. In particular, I want to applaud each and every Keppel student, who participated in creating the BEAUTIFUL art that was on display that night, and which was auctioned to raise money for theatre, dance, & music programs at the school! What better way to demonstrate the immense, unbridled creative potential or our Keppel students, and how better to raise awareness of the value of arts programs, than to display the beautiful work that the kids themselves created?

If you attended the silent auction that night, you'll remember the bottleneck just inside the front doors of the school, as parents and teachers alike stopped to "oooh!", and "ahhh!", and marvel at the art that was on display there. Thanks to MKS' recent leap into the blogosphere, that art can be viewed again for the first time, right here, as a reminder of the kind of marvelous creativity these kids are capable of, when given the opportunity. Take a look (and be amazed)!

All KIDS' AUCTION ART


To every kid who contributed to these outstanding pieces of artwork, I hope you feel proud of what you have accomplished. We at MKS certainly are! Everyone there was blown-away by your incredibly creative ideas, and wonderful artwork. (Didn't we tell you they would be)?

Encore! Encore!

Dear Keppel, Toll, & Hoover families and neighbors.

Thank you for the amazing show of support during our performances of Encore! Encore! So many people became involved onstage, backstage, at the front of house, fundraising, donating, and enjoying the show as audience members! We are so very excited about the future of musical theatre opportunities for our students.

Don't forget! High School Musical performs in early December. Registration for our winter classes will begin next month!

Thank you again to everyone!

Jeremy Lucas and Justine Baldwin

Annual MKS Meeting & Harvest Festival Update!

Hello Everyone!

I want to thank all of you who came to our exciting annual MKS meeting last night. It was great to see all the support for our school and continuing its efforts to fund the arts programs at Keppel. You all are an amazing group of dedicated and passionate parents. I am honored to continue leading this group for the next year and couldn't wish for a better board to work along side of me. Joanne Pingry has gone above and beyond this last year as our treasurer and I am thrilled to be working with her. Betsy Ames will also continue as our secretary. She just happens to also be our PTA President and her commitment to this school amazes me. She does it all with such grace and ease. Chris Walters, also known as the Keppel parent that won't ever leave, is truly one of the most respected people around. She continues to help our school in ways no one will ever see. She is the true meaning of "team player". Her guidance to all of us has helped create the community we all felt last night. She is selfless, smart, hard-working, passionate and compassionate. She is an inspiration. She will continue to be our Auditor and we are all very thankful for that.

All of you at the meeting last night know that after all the business was taken care of we discussed the important event that is just around the corner. We are having our Harvest Festival on Friday, Oct. 5th. This is the funnest afternoon for the kids. They love it! We are behind on our planning stages at this point and could use some help. We got some amazing dads to volunteer to put together some new games for the kids. In fact, two dads this morning have already started doing the inventorying and have looked into making new exciting games. If you are interested in helping with that, please email us at our blog contact. If you can help in other ways during the week, please email us as well. The day of the event we need the most help. We put together a schedule of parents helping at all the various booths and food stations. Please let us know if you can help on the actual day.

Thank you again to all of you wonderful volunteers. You are appreciated by everyone at Keppel. Our kids are very lucky.....

If you ever want to write something and have it on our blog, please submit it to us and we will post it for you.

See you at the Harvest Festival!

Joan Zierhut
MKS Chairperson

Welcome to our new MKS web site

We will be using this forum to help keep you all informed with what we are up to and what fund raisers are coming up. We also hope to show you all the wonderful art activities that we have funded and are producing. This way you will be able to see what all the fund raising efforts from the kids, parents and teachers are paying for. We will constantly be updating this to show all that our children at Mark Keppel do.

What is MKS?
What is a foundation? Why is this separate from PTA? These are questions we get constantly.

MKS, which stands for Make Keppel Special is your school's foundation. A foundation is a group that can fund-raise for a school without being directly part of the school, the way PTA is.

PTA is an organization who's purposes are basically to promote the welfare of all children, help secure laws for care and protection of all children, bring the relationship of school, parents and teachers closer and more (see your Keppel Kable for the exact wording). Fund raising for Keppel is not what they are about. When PTA does fund raise, it's for their working budget and to bring Keppel such things for the care and protection of your children (emergency supplies, shade, health-related murals). PTA also contributes $5,000.00 each year to help pay for the arts programs listed below. PTA is limited by PTA by-laws to only have two fund raisers a year. This is so PTA keeps their focus at things like community building, relations with parents, teachers and children, and so on.

This is where MKS comes in. In 1991, a group of motivated (and very smart!) parents decided to start a foundation for Keppel. They filed all the right papers, wrote by-laws, had meetings and started fund raising. Pam Ellis (recently retired as president of Glendale's School Board) was one of these dedicated parents. She will be at our first meeting of this school year to give the detailed history of MKS on September 18th. Since 1991, MKS has grown and grown.

What has MKS done?
Each year we raise enough money to help pay for:

• Kindergarten through 2^nd Grade Music

• 3^rd Grade Recorder Program

• 4^th through 6^th Grade Visual Arts Program

In addition to the above we have recently

• bought a stove for the teachers to use with the children,

• we have repaired the kiln so the children can make things with clay again,

• we purchased plants, seeds, tools to get the Unity Garden underway,

• we bought the “Reading Rocks” for the grassy area so the children have a place
  to read during recesses in the shade

• and much more.

What is coming up for MKS?
We are now working hard to get our drama and music stage at a place where we can do some simple productions. Larger productions are still going to be done at the Toll Auditorium -- thank you Toll for sharing! The process of refurbishing Keppel's stage has been a long one, but we are determined to finish it this year. We have met at Arts Focus meetings for more than a year to make decisions like fixing up the stage. Our principal, Mary Mason, is dedicated to this process of inviting parents and teachers to make these decisions together. I feel very fortunate as a parent to be allowed a voice in such decisions for our school. I encourage you all to participate in these meetings (and MKS meetings!) when you can.

Another part of MKS acting as an “umbrella” account for various other groups that make Keppel so special. We do the booking for Drill Team, 5^th and 6^th Grade Committees, Musical Theatre, and we keep separate accounts for each teacher at Keppel for the annual Read-a-Thon.

Thank goodness we have such smart parents who are able to do our accounting because it is a time consuming, tedious job. This year Joanne Pingry has stepped up to do this job and she is amazing. I feel very lucky to have her working with me. She will be writing for us each month to up-date you on how much our fund raisers are bringing in. If you want all the accounting details, she provides us those at our MKS meetings.

I hope this article helps you all to understand MKS better. I hope you now understand why we do all the fund raising we do and why it is so important to help, either by

• volunteering to help with an event if you can, or

• financially participate by purchasing something at our various fund raisers or

• by giving a flat-out donation.

Every penny helps!

If you have any questions or want to contact me to volunteer you can email me at: MKS_news@yahoo.com or leave me a phone message at Keppel - 818-244-2113. Please bookmark this web site and come back -- we'll update it as often as we can.

Thank you all for you support!

Joan Zierhut
MKS Chairperson

From the Treasurer

We are off to a great start in the 2007-08 school year. There were two Back To School Nights this Summer and MKS raised over $4000 in donations. Thank you parents for your generous support of our Arts program. And thank you teachers for communicating the importance of MKS during your Back To School presentations. If you forgot to donate, it's not too late!! The front office has additional donation forms. I am looking forward to a successful school year.

Joanne Pingry
MKS Treasurer