I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break with many meaningful moments spent with family and friends. Hopefully the rest and enjoyment of that time is still with you as you plan ahead for a busy December. As experienced Cascade Ridge families know, the next few weeks before our first Winter Break will be busy in every classroom, and our kids have much to learn and many activities and projects to enjoy!

As we move into this season, I am, again, reminded of how generous and giving this community is. We have many chances in our community to provide to those who are less fortunate, especially in December. Most notably here at Cascade Ridge, our PTSA sponsors Caring Through Sharing that provides a wonderful opportunity to give to families who could really use a few helping hands and caring hearts. Our kickoff was Monday, November 28th and you should have received a flyer sent home with your child. A few changes to note, this year we will be solely supporting the Issaquah Food Bank and they are inundated with requests. In addition, we will be moving our gift tags out of the classroom and into the school foyer. Families are invited to come in to the school and select gift tags together to provide for needy families. We will have one week of gift tag selection, November 28th – December 2nd. We will then have one week to return the wrapped gifts to the school, December 5th – December 9th. This is a really quick turnaround, so we invite you to gather your gift tags as early as possible. I encourage you to take advantage of this program to generously give from the heart. We, as a community, truly benefit from giving back, and I know the families in the program really appreciate the caring and generosity that expands exponentially through this program. Please look for more information in this Howler, on our website, and in the Coyote Connection that hits your email each week.

There are also more fun activities happening through the PTSA in December. For our second year in a row, we will have our Book Fair in December (7th – 9th) to provide the opportunity for families to do some holiday shopping. This event also coincides on its final day (Friday, December 9th) with "A Starry Night at Cascade Ridge," PTSA's Fine Arts Night and Dinner from 6:00-8:00 P.M. Families can watch local artists in action, make their own art, see your child's artwork on display, take part in our very special Live Community Art Project, and enter the free drawing to win a year's membership to the Bellevue Art Museum! We hope everyone will come and enjoy both events. It is sure to help you get into a cheerful holiday mood if you haven’t already! The sign-up to order teriyaki dinner has been added to our website and online process, so it is easy to participate and enjoy!

Once we get into the new year, we will be off and running with many more initiatives and events. Very importantly, at our January 26th meeting we plan to, among other things, review our budget, vote in our nominating committee for next year’s Board, and hear about the new ISD bond that will be on the April ballot. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend so you can participate in this significant PTSA process.

I hope your month will be filled with many joyful experiences, and much time spent with family and friends.

Happy Holidays!
Deanne King, PTSA President
deannewking@live.com