Social Impact

Thanks to the San Marin High School 9th grade CCR (College and Career Readiness) Class, we challenged students to come up with a way to “Give Where You Live.” We heard from about 10 groups of students and Equip agreed to fund two winning projects. The Buddy Bench and Backpack stocked with items for new students coming from a different country. Thank you to all the students, San Marin Staff and our guest judges for helping us make this night a success!

Health and healing have never seemed more important after trudging through this pandemic year. Ellie Dominguez, owner and creator of Ellie’s Essentials, partnered with Equip to host a sound healing event at the Equip Annex. Led by yoga and meditaion instructor, Jodi McLean, participants were treated to a 3-hour mini retreat intended to bring women together to heal and work through emotions with the power of sound. Massage, skin care, reiki energy work and other health vendors were also on site for the women to partake in. The event sold out and was an overwhelming success with many women asking us to host more in the future. Check in with us again when the weather warms up a bit for more events like this!

Equip’s Board of Trustees voted in June to gift 3 Novato Unified School Teachers with a $1000 award for their service to their students during a very difficult pandemic year in the classroom. We asked the NUSD community to submit nominations for teachers who went above and beyond to “meet the moment” with creativity, innovation, compassion and grace.  

We were fortunate to receive over 20 nominations. While we could only select 3 winners (one elementary, one middle school and one high school teacher), we did want to acknowledge the others and each teacher was awarded a $50 gift as a gesture of our profound gratitude.

Thank you to all of our teachers and please read on to learn more about the 3 teachers who received the “Meet The Moment” Award.

Caren Gutierrez is a resource teacher at Rancho Elementary School. Ms. Gutierrez worked tirelessly during the pandemic to meet the needs of all her students. When she heard kids were in the on campus day care during remote learning, Caren would go over to their classroom so she could teach them in person. At the beginning of the 2020 school year, Rancho’s staffing allocation was frozen and they were no allowed to fill the aide position. Caren worked during the first half of the year without support. She also collaborated with other staff to help provide interventions when necessary and led trainings to the entire school staff.

Jason Eckl is the Sinaloa Middle School Music teacher. Jason went out of his way to provide instruments to students at home during remote learning. He made himself available on campus before and after regular working hours to ensure every student had the tools to continue their music education at home.  Mr. Eckl’s commitment to the music program has proven to be invaluable to students. Providing them with an opportunity to play music and sing undoubtedly relieved stress and anxiety during uncertain times. Students shared that it gave them comfort during a year of isolation and allowed them to have a glimpse of normalcy and collaboration with peers from a safe distance.

Karen Maass is a Spanish Teacher at Novato High School. Nominated by one of her students, Karen was recognized because she wanted to see everyone succeed to the best of their ability. Ms. Maass put in the time to build relationships with each student and find ways to keep them motivated and engaged in learning. She checked in regularly with students about their mental and physical health. She made sure each student knew that her care for their well-being went beyond the classroom. Students said that her classes were less focused on grades and more about where the possibility of learning could take them. She not only inspired them to learn other languages, but encouraged them to engage in other cultures and pursue travel.

Santa Rosa United’s U15 and U17 Girls qualified for the ECNL National Soccer Tournament held in Lakewood Ranch, FL during early July. Players and families traveled across the country representing the top 96 teams in the nation per age group. Equip’s sponsorship helped ease travel costs for players and families. Congratulations to players and coaches for this amazing accomplishment. 

Our Junior Gardener’s ended their 8-week gardening session with a special guest.  Chef Dara Mulligan from Dara’s Kitchen volunteered to help the kids create healthy homemade salad dressings.  She taught them the importance of reading labels in the store to avoid dressings with unhealthy ingredients they can’t pronounce. The students experimented mixing together different oils, acids and spices.  Pro tip, a little sesame seed oil goes a long way! Each student picked (and washed) lettuce from the garden to taste test their dressing and everyone took home a jar of their finished product to share with their family. 

About a year ago, we had discussed doing some sort of community garden or gardening club to teach about water conservation, sustainability, gratitude for food and healthy eating. Seeing the food insecurity crisis in our country and community, we felt now was the time to open this opportunity for growth.  We were fortunate to connect with the good people at the Novato Fire District Administrative building and they had a fantastic backyard space which was underutilized. With the support of our former board member, Emma Mesenburg, and the incredible creativity and vision of Brittanie Williamson, we launched our first Junior Gardening Session in April. Our planter boxes are even made from an old fence at the NFD building which was going to be thrown away.  We are proud to do as much as possible to conserve resources. Special thanks to Chief Kyle Dague, NFD Administrator Colleen Walraven for allowing us use for the space.  Thank you to Luis at A& S Materials for the nonprofit discount on our soil. A special shout out to Master Gardener, Diane Gasson, for donating gloves and shovels and offering us resources to help make our garden a success.

San Marin High School Senior, Elizabeth Deruvo, founded the nonprofit “Operation Warm Winter” when she was just in elementary school. She collects warm jackets, coats, bedding and blankets and finds community members in need to deliver them to. Knowing many families have been out of work and displaced during the pandemic, Elizabeth reached out to Equip to partner on a clothing drive. We successfully collected and delivered two huge truck fulls of clothes and bedding to a local homeless shelter. A shout out to our incredible volunteers from the Do Good Be Kind Club at SMHS who spent the day helping us with collecting and sorting. Also thanks to Matt Cronin at Customized Hauling for donating a truckload of plastic tubs to aid in our organization. And finally, we can’t forget to high five Sam White and Mikkel Clark for loaning their pick up trucks to assist with the delivery.

Equip was made aware of local school children in Novato who were in need of gifts during the holiday season. Equip Executive Director, Katie Stafford, was able to get all of the gifts on their lists.

Big thanks to Kohl’s in San Rafael for offering us a friends and family discount and giving our nonprofit a tax exemption. It allowed us our donation to go even further than we imagined.