Project Peace: Day of Service

August 22, 2015, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

A Day of Service is a volunteer service opportunity coordinated by Project Peace East Bay to bring together local faith-based groups, non-profit organizations, and East Bay social service providers. It is an opportunity for people from very different backgrounds to come together simply to love and serve our shared community.


Project Peace’s hope is that through these partnerships our local East Bay communities will become more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

For more information and to sign up,
visit www.projectpeaceeastbay.org/Day-Of-Service
or email DayofService@ProjectPeaceEastBay.org

Volunteer Shoutouts

A thank you letter from Ms. Washington’s second-grade class to FN volunteer Pete Gohler who shared about his experiences as a pilot during a trip to the library.

Oakland Students Win Award at UC Davis

On May 30, Oakland’s Roosevelt Middle School (RMS) sent a team of blossoming robotics experts to the 2015 C-STEM Day RoboPlay Challenge Competition at University of California, Davis (UC Davis). The Roosevelt Bulldog Robotics Team, students from a newly created robotics course at RMS, were mentored by retired scientists and Faith Network volunteers Mark and Joanne Perra. The team won third place out of thirty-six teams in their division, which is composed of Northern California middle schools.

The RoboPlay Challenge is one of three competitions that take place during C-STEM Day, an annual event organized by the UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education. C-STEM is an acronym for “Computing, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.” The event encourages middle-school and high-school students to demonstrate real-world problem-solving skills in a competitive environment.

Professor Harry Cheng, director of the C-STEM Center at UC Davis, publicly recognized the RMS team for a strong showing and for the fact that this team was the first ever from Oakland to participate in the competition. Sporting bronze medals around their necks, the students and their classroom teacher Zelda Allison proudly received a trophy in the concluding awards ceremony. When he heard about the win, former OUSD Superintendent Gary Yee said, “Can you believe how far we’ve come since Mark and Joanne Perra brought the UC Davis C-STEM program to the attention of district leaders in 2013? Can’t be more excited.”

Faith Network is a major supporter of the C-STEM launch at RMS, supplying volunteers and funding.

In the Land of Reading

by Merle Miller, Excel Reading Clinic coordinator

Every Friday afternoon at Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary, seven excited second-graders enlivened Pod B classroom with their eagerness to read. The team of experienced tutors was always up for the challenge, making sure to wrap learning with fun. We progressed through boxes of sight words and learned the difference between the short “e” sound and the short “i” sounds. We discovered that The Funny Baby wasn’t actually funny-looking after all, just different. With every book, we built up our confidence in reading. I can truly say that there is no greater picture than that of a child’s face lit up with a triumphant smile! Thank you, tutors. You have taken former non-readers on a wonderful journey into the land of reading.

Gala Wrap-up

Click here to visit the gala photo gallery.

Thank you to all sponsors, guests, program participants, and volunteers! We loved seeing all of you. Your freely-given prayers, participation, and generosity have overwhelmed us. Thank you. Make sure to check out the photo gallery.

Platinum Sponsors
Branagh Construction
Kathy Drake
Paul and Courtney Ebner
Terry and Mary MacRae
Ken and Stacy Mattson
Mark and Joanne Perra
Union Bank

Gold Sponsors
Pricewaterhouse Coopers, LLC

Silver Sponsors
Alta Vista Solutions
Doug and Lauren Bockmiller
California Bank of Commerce
City National Bank
Kaiser Permanente
Don and Karyn Kintzer
Jonathan and Varetta Mayes
Mick and Lauren Morlan
Randy and Diane Roth

Champion Sponsors
Vicky and Paul Cohune
Convergence Church
Aliza and Noel Gallo
Ken and Eileen Jones
Don and Karyn Kintzer
Manny and Paula Martinez
Mission Springs Conference Center
Oakland Worship Center
Mark and Joanne Perra
Randy and Diane Roth
David Silver and Angela Aquino-Silver

Last Call!

It's not too late to purchase a gala ticket!

Enjoy an evening of flavorful foods, entertainment, and inspiring stories while you learn about how you can invest in our children.

Oakland Unified School District Superintendent, Antwan Wilson, is our special guest speaker!

To purchase tickets or sponsor the event, visit www.faith-network.com/gala or call our office (510-836-5100).

Blazingly Cool Science

by Jocelyne Birren, Interim Director of Volunteers

Last month, fifth-graders from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary journeyed to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in conjunction with Berkeley Lab Adventure Zone in Elementary Science (BLAZES). Looking ever so professional in white lab coats, gloves, and safety goggles, they participated in hands-on activities to find out what conducts electricity and when do substances change from one state of matter to another. They were very engaged and asked many questions:

“How can a person distinguish one gas from another?”
“Is nitrogen natural or man-made?”
“If nitrogen is a gas, how can it be converted to liquid?”

Dry ice fascinated the students in particular. There was a collective “aha!” moment when they saw an air-filled balloon shrivel up after it was immersed in liquid nitrogen, creating dry ice in the process. They witnessed what happens when a small piece of dry ice is dropped into a flask filled with 150 milliliters of water.

Whenever appropriate, the students’ teacher urged students to picture themselves as scientists. Perhaps the best encouragement came from one of the scientists who mentioned the usefulness of play-doh in the lab. He concluded, “The coolest thing about being a scientist is that you never have to grow up.” That comment seemed to be an inviting proposition to at least one fifth-grader.

BLAZES’s mission is to inspire and prepare the next generation of scientists, engineers, and technicians. Indeed, several students are already contemplating becoming chemists, surgeons, and robotics engineers. Thank you, BLAZES, for demonstrating how science is cool!