Thankful this Holiday Season

As I think about things I am thankful for this year, I am especially thankful for the community of supporters that surrounds Sunny Hills. This includes our wonderful donor community of foundations and individuals, all of the various referring agencies and other service providers who work in tandem with us, the staff who work with our kids each and every day, and of course those kids themselves; I am especially thankful for the youth that we serve, for their determination, their insightfulness, their willingness to keep trying in the face of some extraordinarily tough situations.

The staff and the young students at our Marin Academic Center (MAC) program are a wonderful example of what it is about Sunny Hills that we can all be thankful for. The students at MAC arrive on our San Anselmo campus from all over the Bay Area, having faced numerous challenges in their personal lives and along their educational paths. Most of them have specific learning challenges along with interpersonal challenges and issues. They are often confused, angry, alienated, and even terrified when it comes to school. Having bounced around from classroom to classroom and teacher to teacher, they have no solid adult or peer relationships to model their behavior on. Over and over again they have been told that they are failing, that something isn’t working, that maybe they should try somewhere else or something else.

But when they arrive at MAC, they are embraced whole-heartedly by every staff person they meet. And the other students around them, because of the constant reinforcement of their "community of caring," are able to provide positive peer support and interaction. For many of our MAC students, it is the first time that they have been able to call someone a friend. The small school environment, the 1:2 ratio of staff to students, and the constant positive reinforcement help children begin to learn and grow academically, in ways many of them never realized that they could.

What is it that makes MAC such a powerful example of success, community, and caring? MAC is a California certified nonpublic school serving children ages 5 to 15 whose educational and behavioral challenges are too acute to be handled in traditional public school environments. In practice, this means that MAC provides high-quality, individualized education that addresses each student’s particular needs. By building on each child’s personal interests and their fundamental desire to learn and grow, MAC sees extraordinary results where others have seen only escalating problems. Almost all MAC students are able to reach the goals of grade-level academic and social achievement, appropriate school behavior, and ultimately reintegration and mainstreaming back to their local schools or other less-restrictive educational settings.

This fall, we welcomed MAC to its permanent home on the Sunny Hills San Anselmo campus. We are happy to report that the staff, teachers, and kids are all doing well and loving their new environment! In addition to the updated buildings, swimming pool, and playground, plans are underway for a new edible organic garden in the spring, and kids and staff take advantage of the fields and open space that are now surrounding them. It is a wonderful, inspiring site for all of us.

A gentle reminder that this is also the time of year when we encourage people to pledge to the Sunny Hills annual appeal. Your pledge helps guarantee that programs like MAC continue to help vulnerable children learn, succeed, and grow academically and personally through caring and careful attention. Another way to support our programs and services is through purchase of a Bounty of Marin gift basket, which makes a lovely thank you gift or treat for someone special.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season, and hope that like us here at Sunny Hills, you find much to be thankful for in your lives this year.