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TV News Coverage for the YV Community Action Group and MDUSD Giving Campaign Sunday morning, June 7 at 10AM on ABC 7!
This week's show highlights the important role of community involvement as state budget cuts continue to threaten necessary services and programs. Fellow guests include San Jose City Councilwoman, Nora Campos, and Kathleen Kelly, Board President/Co-Founder of Spark San Francisco. The program will air Sunday morning, June 7 at 10AM on ABC7. Make a symbolic gesture of support for our school district and
Posted: June 5, 2009 See YV’s Community Garden Grow!
The Ygnacio Valley Community Action Group... ...has been putting the spotlight on the need for improved campus curb appeal at Ygnacio Valley High School since the spring of 2007.
Posted: May 11, 2009 Marquee is Up and Running! 
The lighting and dedication ceremony for our new marquee took place after school on April 20-- just in time to welcome students back from the spring break vacation. Special guests included Mt. Diablo Unified School Board members, Paul Strange and Linda Mayo; Interim Superintendent, Dick Nicoll; and Maintenance and Operations Program Manager, Jeff McDaniel, who was instrumental in coordinating the marquee project. Also in attendence were Sean McPeak of McPeak Electric, Inc. and Stuart Watson of Kel-Tec Builders, Inc. who helped get the sign installed and electrified. The school driveway was blocked off to traffic for the event and the YVHS Marching Band played at the corner to start the festivities. YVHS Principal Carolyn Plath spoke of the impact that the new sign will have in illuminating for the public the wide variety of exciting activities that occur on our campus. Ygnacio Valley Community Action Group founder, Teresa Torbett, helped work with Mt. Diablo Unified School district officials to bring this project to fruition and also coordinated the ribbon cutting ceremony. Members of the PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association), students, parents, alumni, neighbors joined in the festivities which also included cake and ice tea. Posted: May10, 2009 YVHS Marquee Installation 
Our new electronic marquee was finally installed in the school driveway bright and early on Tuesday morning with the help of a massive construction crane. Stuart Watson and his construction crew rom Kel-Tec Builders, Inc. positioned the marquee into place while Carolyn Plath, YVHS Principal; Jeff McDaniel, Facilities and Operations Program Manager from the MDUSD Maintenance and Operations department, and Teresa Torbett, founder of the YV Community Action Group looked on. Posted: Mar. 18, 2009 Ground-breaking construction begun for the much-awaited new ELECTRONIC MARQUEE!
Posted: Feb. 17, 2009 It takes just 7 seconds to make a first impression! We know that “curb appeal” refers to the attractive & welcoming appearance of a house from the street and directly affects its property value-- but did you know that having great Every member of the Ygnacio Valley High School community deserves to have a great impression of their school. We're not just picking up garbage... we're lifting up a school! Want to join our effort or need more information? Landscaping Day at YVHS In Association with Comcast Comcast and hundreds of YVHS volunteers complete tree planting and other major campus improvements while having a great time on Comcast Cares Day
As if our three major projects weren't enough to tackle, volunteers also worked in teams to pick up garbage and recyclable beverage containers from all corners of our 55-acre campus, remove juniper bushes from the front of the MU, and clean wing hallways, classrooms and even storage closets throughout the day! In addition to the work outlined by Comcast and the YV Community Action Group, continued progress was made in grading the new Community Garden to prep for placing raised planters, and we are especially grateful to Concord Disposal for once again coming to our aid in providing complimentary containers to dispose of the recyclable green Thank you so much, Comcast! YVHS parent and Comcast volunteer, Danny Bratcher, led a very talented team of Comcast professionals, many of whom are YVHS parents and alumni, and under their guidance made our projects run smoothly. We are so grateful to Comcast for their major investment in our school. Everyone enjoyed the complimentary breakfast and lunch and we had a wonderful time. Be sure to view the photos, look for a story in the Contra Costa Times... and take the opportunity to visit YVHS and check out all the changes for yourself. You won't believe the difference -- and to think that such a complete transformation took place in only seven hours! YVHS Community Garden Clean Up
YV students, parents and local Boy Scouts from Troop 380 showed their Warrior Pride today cutting back the remaining bushes, pulling stumps and carrying everything away to the big yellow recycling container provided by Concord Disposal. We had another great time working together, and made tremendous progress in a relatively short time. Mr. Kevin Edwards, Student Services Coordinator, is putting together the next phase of the garden project... regrading the area, removing the larger stumps, and preparing the site for the installation of raised planting beds. Look for his update soon! Thank you again to everyone who came out to help-- and thank you, especially, to the students who extended the clean up and picked up trash from parking lot, tennis court and quad.
Fencing Update… Nearly Complete! Fencing Update… Halfway There!
Upcoming CLEAN UP DAYS… Sprucing up the Back! Recent Campus Clean Up days have focused on removing trash and chewing gum, clearing debris from the school driveway and most recently, cutting, clearing and hauling brush from the front of the 100 Wing in preparation for placing raised planting beds for the new YVHS Community Garden. Our clean up events have been very well attended by Finally, this spring we are partnering with Comcast Cable to give the front of the school a much needed makeover as part of Comcast Cares Day in May, and we are working with Frank Kluber, landscape architect to develop a design plan with input from the YVHS community. Comcast has committed to investing a significant amount of money and energy towards improving the YVHS campus and we invite students, parents and other interested members the community to submit design ideas for the front of the school, or any other area on campus, by Friday, February 29. Bring them by the office! Google “YVHS” and click on “Warrior Pride” for updated information. We continue to ask that all YV students and visitors leave the campus cleaner than they found it and do their part of help reduce vandalism on campus. Be a champion for change and talk to others about caring for YVHS campus facilities and getting involved. Your suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Please join us as we improve the campus for everyone— and student service hours are always awarded! We’re Several Steps Closer to a New Marquee!—See it this Spring! With regards to the new electronic marquee, Mt. Diablo School Board President and YVHS alumni, Gary Eberhard has been instrumental in moving the bureaucratic process forward to overcome obstacles to accessing electricity necessary for installation at the corner of Oak Grove Road. We anticipate that a new electronic marquee will be installed before the end of the school year; however, to discourage ongoing vandalism and damage that has made the current marquee nearly unusable, we would like to raise the height of the new marquee, which will require special permitting from the state at an additional cost. We are still raising the funds needed to complete this important project, so please make your personal or business donation today!— Make your checks payable to YVHS and put “Marquee” in the memo line! "Plan B" Clean Up Day saw more YV Warriors Working to Make a YVHS Community Action Group November Update! We’ve been busy since the start of school! We have already had two major campus clean up days, the first just prior to the start of classes to help get the campus ready after a long summer and lots of construction. Twenty volunteers including parents and students responded to a last minute call for help to remove trash from all areas of campus, wash down corridors and entryways, wash windows and walls and—for the first time in nearly ten years, remove trash and broken glass from the school driveway and parking lot with a commercial street sweeper. We owe special thanks to Responding to our requests for necessary campus repairs, the MDUSD Mobile Maintenance Team set up shop for three weeks in October and did a variety of repair work in classrooms and around campus, including removal of dead trees. We are still reviewing the list of items that were to be completed, and will summarize them for you in a future update. Our most recent campus clean up was sponsored by Citi celebrating their Global Community Day (click here for more info & pictures). Nearly 100 volunteers came together on Saturday, November 17th to make a difference at YV. In addition to Citi employees from all over the East Bay, the YVHS community had strong representation The combined efforts of students, school administrators, district officials,
volunteers and our YV neighbors are a great first step in realizing the full
potential of Ygnacio Valley High School! Feeling good about where you are is the first step in feeling good about what you do there!
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The Ygnacio Valley High School entrance on Oak Grove Road got the first phase of a major makeover last weekend. Taking advantage of the school holiday, construction crews from Kel-Tec Builders, Inc. arrived early Monday morning and removed the old, broken and vandalized YVHS marquee.
Incoming school traffic was blocked for several hours while workers used heavy equipment to break up and remove the decorative rock base and old marquee and trench across the school driveway to access power at the corner. We are now awaiting completion of PG&E electrical work before installation of the new electronic marquee can take place in the next two weeks. 
We are so excited that YVHS was chosen as a site for the May 3, 2008 Worldwide Comcast Cares Day! Coordination with the YV Community Action Group and planning for this event started last fall, and culminated in hundreds of enthusiastic YVHS volunteers representing students, teachers, administrators, parents and members of the community planting trees along the front of our school, adding crushed rock to the parking lot medians to eliminate mud during the rainy season and removing ivy from the campus driveway to prepare for updated planting. Landscape architect, Frank Kluber, supervised the tree selection and planting, choosing three different species of flowering (non-fruiting) pear trees to create a dramatic and unified theme for the entrance to our school. Eleven flowering pear "New Bradford" were planted along the grass in front of the 200 Wing, eight flowering pear "Capitol" were planted in the rectangular driveway median in front of the 200 Wing and six flowering pear "Autumn Blaze" appear in the curved median adjacent to the handicap parking spaces. In addition to the flowering pear 
trees that were planted on Saturday, five additional redwood trees "Aptos" were purchased and will be planted on campus on a later date. According to Comcast officials, of their past five school improvement projects, YVHS had by far the largest number of volunteers come out to help. The trees and rock, as well as the expertise, materials, tools, heavy equipment and food, were all provided by Comcast, but YV supplied the excitement and the muscle power!
waste! It was quite a day-- Everyone worked hard, we had a lot of fun, and we are all very proud of the end result!
It started with CitiGroup, moved forward as Plan "B"-- and finished today! In the end, it took just two months and three separate clean up days to completely clear the area in front of the 100 Wing for the new YVHS Community Garden. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a desire, a commitment and a little teamwork! 
students, administrators, teachers, parents and members of the community, and we would especially like to thank Concord Disposal for their help in hauling away several cubic yards of green waste. In response to numerous student requests, we are providing another work day this Sunday, January 20 in the Community Garden from 9 – 1 and a major effort is being coordinated to clean up the area near the playing fields at the back of the school along the campus fence line visible from the bike trail—but we need YOUR help! Join us again on Sunday, February 10 from 9-1. 
Although we were not able to do the work on the tennis court fence as
larger area destined for raised beds. We worked until the container was
Clean Up, Clean Up—everybody do your share!
school board president, Gary Eberhard, Concord city mayor, Mark Peterson and YVHS parent, Don Morrison for their collaborative efforts to make this HUGE job happen!