Volunteer to Read During Our African American Literature Read-In!

The Oakland Public Education Fund’s Oakland School Volunteers (OSV) program is seeking volunteers to support Oakland schools during the upcoming African-American Literature Read-In from Feb. 12-15 and Feb. 22, 2024. 

Guest readers choose the date and time of their 1.5-hour shift during sign-up. The OSV Team will confirm with readers their specific school location when the schedule is finalized. We appreciate your flexibility!

Volunteers can sign up here. For more information or to learn how your company or organization can get involved, email [email protected].

SIGN UP TO VOLUNTEER

The Ed Fund office is closed  from December 25, 2023 - January 2, 2024

Our Development and Finance & Accounting teams will be working during the winter break in a limited capacity to ensure all donations are processed on time. You can find our donation instructions online here.

Please note the following year-end donation deadlines to ensure that all gifts intended for 2023 are processed this tax year.

Checks

- Checks sent via U.S. Postal Service (USPS) must be postmarked on or before December 31, 2023.

- Checks sent via carriers, FedEx, UPS, or other means must be physically received at our office by 12 pm on Friday, December 29.

ACH and Wire Transfers

- Wire and ACH transfers must be received by Friday, December 29.

Credit Card

- Online credit card donations must be processed by your credit card company on December 31 by 11:59 p.m. in your time zone.

Gifts of Stock

- Gifts of publicly traded securities must be received into the Ed Fund’s brokerage account by Friday, December 30.

- Donors should communicate with their broker because many brokerage firms have their own year-end deadlines.

- We encourage donors to initiate gifts of stock at least 10 business days in advance of December 29 to allow ample time for processing.

For questions about gifts, please email [email protected].

Computer Science Education Week Engages Students in Technology

The Ed Fund celebrated Computer Science Education Week December 4-8, hosting nearly a dozen events at Oakland schools. Computer Science Education Week promotes exposure to and engagement with computer science and the tech field through robotics, coding, career exploration, and more! 

Over 50 volunteers from Google, Girl Geek X, Amazon Web Services, Little Fire Robot Academy, Mission Bit, and the University of California Berkeley facilitated workshops for over 400 students in 20 classrooms. 

A University of California Berkley’s Civil & Environmental Engineering team worked with students in the “Science for a Safer World” Geographic Information System (GIS) workshop. Students discovered how groundwater and drinking water quality varies between different Oakland neighborhoods.

During another workshop, Computer Science students at Coliseum College Prep Academy (CCPA) discovered how to analyze sports data with a team from Mission Bit. Students were introduced to Structured Query Language (SQL), a programming language for storing and processing information in a relational database.

For more information about how to volunteer in Oakland schools, visit our website.

Thank You for Supporting Oakland Newcomers!

On Giving Tuesday, our community made a big difference for OUSD students! With the help and support of 107 amazing donors, we raised $16,659!

And with a generous $15,000 match from the Oakland A's—we raised a total of over $31,000 to support Oakland’s newcomer students!

Thanks to our generous community, we will provide brand new winter coats for hundreds of our newly arrived refugee, asylee, and immigrant students this winter season!

This has been our most successful coat drive ever and was only possible because our community continues to stand up for our students. And—because of additional donor support, we were also able to purchase new backpacks for some of our Newcomer students.

If you missed out, you can still donate to support our Newcomer Coat Drive!
Thank you!

Click here to View More Information About Oakland Public Education Fund News Update - December 2023