Napa Valley wineries adopt local schools to enhance public education.
Mention the Napa Valley Vintners, and most people immediately flash to the group’s fabled annual auction, where well-heeled wine collectors jet in from around the world to flash their $2,500 paddles as celebs like Jay Leno and an army of volunteers cheer them on.
Auction Napa Valley is more than a glamorous spectacle, of course; it raises millions for local health and housing nonprofits every year—nearly $78 million since its inception in 1981. But there’s a quieter, less-celebrated side to the Vintners’ philanthropy: More than two dozen member wineries have joined the national Adopt-a-School program, which pairs businesses with public schools in an effort to strengthen the bond between campus and community.
A unique bond
“Every winery and every school forges their own relationship,” explains Napa County Superintendent of Schools Barbara Nemko, who first brought the program to the Vintners’ attention five years ago. “They’re all different,” she continues. “You can display kids’ artwork in your tasting room. You can have some of your employees go to the school and do some tutoring or talk about the various jobs in a winery.”
Other ways to participate include sponsoring the Junior Achievement program in classes, awarding mini-grants for projects and programs aimed at enriching the learning experience, helping out on career days and joining the school’s strategic planning team. Some Napa wineries give employees paid time off to volunteer on campus; many host back-to-school and end-of-school receptions for teachers, attend special events and donate classroom supplies and equipment.
The Napa Valley Vintners, as a group, was already sponsoring Napa High School when Nemko proposed the idea of individual wineries adopting their own schools. The association’s recently departed public affairs manager, Jeri Hansen-Gill, embraced the challenge. “Jeri, God bless her, just took it and ran with it,” Nemko recalls. “Because she had such a good relationship with the different wineries, she started making the appeal.”
Today, more than two dozen of Napa County’s 42 public schools have sponsor vintners, and “adoptions keep popping up,” Nemko says, as the Vintners continue to publicize the program. “The kids are very excited,” she adds. “In many cases, they know who the winery owners are. They see them at all their events, so they know their education matters to important adults in the community—and they know about the jobs out there.”
29 reasons
Anywhere but Wine Country, the notion of pairing alcohol-producing businesses with schoolchildren would likely raise eyebrows. But Napa Valley wineries have a long tradition of supporting schools through donations and fund-raisers. And now, an increasing number of vintners have discovered the Adopt-a-School approach is more rewarding than simply writing a check or handing over some bottles for an auction.
Chuck McMinn of Vineyard 29 in St. Helena has dedicated a wall in his winery to artwork and letters from the children of West Park Elementary School in Napa, which the winery adopted four years ago. “I think it’s a great, great program,” says McMinn, who’s a familiar figure on the West Park campus. “I run in its jog-a-thon every year, and we sponsor every kid in the school [at that event],” he says. Last year, that meant 279 students at $5 a head—one of the few hard numbers vintners were willing to volunteer for this story.
As with other adoption pairings, the relationship between Vineyard 29 and West Park goes far beyond money. “We go down to their open house in the spring, go to every class to see what the kids are up to and go to the music programs and their contests. We go in at Christmastime with gift certificates for the teachers. It’s a lot of fun,” McMinn continues. “We get back much more than we give. We get great letters from the kids and lots of enthusiasm when we’re on campus.”
McMinn likens the relationship to “being the grandparents to 279 kids,” while also supporting the teachers’ work. “It lets everybody know we’re part of the community, and we appreciate the hard work the teachers do with less and less resources every year,” he explains. On occasion, West Park has needed a little more help: McMinn once contributed half the funds for a flat-screen projector for the school’s multi-purpose room. “We just kind of keep our eyes open to see what we can do,” he says. “Some years it’s more, some years it’s less.”
Delia Viader, who produces red wine at her Viader Winery in Deer Park, adopted nearby Howell Mountain School two years ago. “For the kids to see we’re paying attention is important,” says Viader, whose daughter, Janet, a fluent Spanish-speaker who also works for the family winery, once spent six weeks on campus helping a new student who started school without English skills. Viader has even funded music classes when the school’s budget fell short. “You can’t really put a price on what you do for kids in education,” Viader says. “People forget that it comes back to you exponentially.”
Viader also hosts “T.G.I.F.” celebrations for Howell Mountain teachers: “We have them over to the winery so they can relax,” she says. Nemko says winery receptions can be a real morale-builder for underappreciated instructors. “Schools are under such pressure, such scrutiny. So much of what you see in the newspaper is so negative about schools,” she says. “To have a winery or other local business that says ‘Hey, we appreciate you, and we think you’re doing really good stuff’—they never get that from anybody.”
Hands-on teaching
Cakebread Cellars of Rutherford was among the first Napa wineries to adopt a school: Mt. George Elementary, a rural campus east of Napa, where Cakebread Culinary Director Brian Streeter teaches students to prepare and serve healthy foods. Writer Sasha Paulsen’s two children, Ariel and Sam Jackson, are grown now, but they still remember Streeter’s classes. “They both loved it, and I remember the teachers telling me that, when Streeter was coming in to teach, they had more parent volunteers than they knew what to do with,” says Paulsen with a laugh.
Ariel Jackson, currently a sophomore at Southern Oregon University, recalls learning about “breads from around the world” with Streeter when she was a student at Mt. George. “One day, we made rice wrappers, which are these Vietnamese wrap things with shrimp and sprouts. Another time, we made Indian flatbread with beans.” The Mt. George kids even visited Cakebread for a blending session using non-fermented grape, apple and cranberry juice instead of wine.
Bouchaine Vineyards in the Carneros district recently adopted the nearby Irene Snow Elementary School, whose students happen to include the grandchildren of winery administrator Susan Falcon. “They’re located down the street. We bring them gift cards for office supplies and have helped them with some basic material needs,” says Falcon. “We just hosted the teachers and staff on the last day of school, to thank them for their hard work during the year.” To find out how Bouchaine can make a greater difference, general manager and winemaker Mark Richmond has asked Falcon and Director of Communications Wendy Yeh to attend regular parent-teacher meetings throughout the school year.
Further up-valley, Yountville Elementary School students are getting more art supplies thanks in part to Silverado Vineyards, where Roxanne Young provides administrative support to general manager Russell Weis. “We’re beginning to work with Principal Troy Knox in the development of their music department,” Young says. Silverado also stages an annual “surprise” luncheon for Yountville faculty and hosts the school’s annual fund-raising gala.
Silverado even presents a month-long exhibition of student artwork prior to the gala; the school plans to auction the works during the Spring 209 gala as another fund-raising venture. “The winery owners are very interested in children, the community and anything pertaining to art and music,” Young explains.
“There’s a lot of evidence that exposure to music and the arts at an early age helps children with the rest of their studies. And everyone knows that art and music are typically the first programs to be cut from school budgets. Silverado Vineyards is very happy and excited to help fill the gap in this area.”
At risk…for success
An interest in helping older students led St. Supéry in Rutherford to adopt Valley Oak, a continuation high school for students from Napa, Yountville and American Canyon who are deemed at risk of failing out of their comprehensive high schools. “We looked at the list [of eligible schools] and thought Valley Oak looked interesting, because it might serve a population whose parental support and involvement is lower than at a traditional high school,” says Lesley Russell, vice president of direct marketing and sales at St. Supéry. “It seemed like a little bit of a challenge.”
Valley Oak may not be a traditional high school, but it’s helped many young Napans get back on track to graduate after falling behind due to truancy or bad grades. When a Valley Oak student doesn’t show up in the morning, someone from the school makes a call to find out why. Class sizes are small, and teachers know their students by both name and personality. Nobody gets lost in the crowd. To further motivate students to both show up and succeed, Valley Oak offers small incentives, like gift cards (for ice cream or iTunes, for example) and snacks for good behavior.
Russell says Valley Oak principal Maria Lopez Cisneros and her staff can make a little money go an astonishing distance: “They really stretch their resources quite a bit. But teachers also dig into their personal pockets constantly,” for small necessities like paper plates, she adds.
“We’re not a winery that can afford to give cash,” Russell continues, but it’s found other ways to contribute. St. Supéry staff have joined school committees—the chief financial officer sits on the budget committee, while Russell is a member of the parent-faculty organization. And helping the school raise money is no problem: “One of the coolest things we did really didn’t take much effort on our behalf,” she says. During the winery’s big public release party for its 2004 Élu red Meritage in fall 2007, staffers from Valley Oak’s Horizons program for ninth- and tenth-graders manned a ring-toss game and raised close to $1,300 from partygoers eager to win a bottle of the blend. Horizons Community Day School, which operates inside Valley Oak, is a closely supervised program for younger teens who spend most of the school day in a single classroom, while the juniors and seniors at Valley Oak move from room to room for different classes.
“That money funded a numerous student activity programs throughout the year,” says Russell, displaying a 16-page “Book of Gratitude” created by Horizons students. The teenagers’ letters thank St. Supéry for helping fund exciting science experiments and a whale-watching trip to Point Reyes—a particularly exotic treat.
“Your donation also helped pay for student rewards and school activities like ticket drawings, pizza parties, field trips and other fun activities,” wrote a teen named Jonny. Classmate Ismail also appreciated the student incentives, a key ingredient in the Valley Oak recipe for keeping kids in class: “The donated money paid for rewards when we’re at school and on time.” A boy named Nathan wrote, “Because of you, more students came to school to join the fun things possible,” including racing solar cars and building hot-air balloons from paper.
As she starts her second school year with Valley Oak, Russell urges other vintners to join the Adopt-a-School movement. “It really is rewarding, easy and fun,” she says. “If you’re a supporter of the community, why not do this too? It doesn’t require anything in particular; you can support the school in any way you want.”
Russell then admits to what she calls “selfish reasons” as well: “Our staff enjoys the opportunity to bond while serving our community.” It’s clear she’s bonded with the Valley Oak community, for starters: “Every time I visit the school, I bring a couple of reams of paper and some pens, and they’re very grateful, because every little bit helps.”
The more the merrier
Shafer Vineyards, in the Stags Leap District on the eastern side of the valley, is one of the latest wineries to pair up with a local school: McPherson Elementary, where the majority of the student body, which is 90 percent Latino, are considered “socioeconomically disadvantaged” by the state; many are also classified as “English learners.”
“We want to try to empower these kids,” says vintner John Shafer, who’s already written a $10,000 check for safer playground equipment for the school’s pre-kindergarten children. “That’s part of our philosophy, to give back to the community.”
Shafer will also meet with school administrators to determine what else McPherson needs: “We’re going to brainstorm with them to see what we can do,” he says. “It’s a work in progress.” One possibility, he continues, is to have Shafer’s winemaker, Elias Fernandez, and cellar workers visit the children as role models of skilled Latino adults.
While McPherson and 25 other schools now have winery sponsors, more than a dozen remain unadopted. Ranging from the rural, one-room Wooden Valley School to crowded city campuses, these orphans include the elementary school and continuation high school in Calistoga, every single campus in American Canyon (three elementaries and a middle school), the Redwood middle school in Napa, eight Napa elementaries and the Napa Valley Adult School. Says Nemko, “I’d love to see every school adopted.”
So would Deborah Russell Broman, current community-outreach chair for the Napa Valley Vintners, who says she hopes to recruit more vintners during membership meetings (so far, most wineries that have signed on to the program did so after meeting directly with an already participating winery’s representative). “I get excited every time I talk about it,” says Broman. “The possibilities are endless.” So, she adds, are the rewards: “A lot of these wineries don’t even have kids at the schools [they adopt], but they enjoy it so much, they do it year after year. It’s really gratifying to see how such a simple thing can help everybody.”
McMinn, who’s preparing to take over the Vintners’ community-outreach chair next year, says he, too, wants all of Napa County’s public schools to be adopted by wineries. “This is an absolutely spectacular and fun thing to do,” he says. “We have great community support, and this is one way to make those bonds even stronger.”
