The 5th Annual Swap, Shop, and Read

Please join us for an evening of book exchanges, reading, and treats.  We would like families to donate gently used books that can be swapped that night.  The more books you donate, the more books you can swap.  For each book you donate you will receive a coupon for a “new” book to take home with you.  We do have a limit of 5 coupons per child, but more donations are always welcome.  So start looking through your book collections for books that you would like to donate.  Remember, a book you have read many times will be new to another family.  Please insert an exchange slip inside each book when you send it to school.  We will collect all the books and have them ready to swap at our Family Reading Night.  See you there!

Irving Schoolyard Fundraiser @ Autre Monde

Fun and Delicious way to raise money for the Irving Schoolyard this month – Autre Monde, located at 6727 W Roosevelt Rd, is generously donating a portion of every Tuesday’s proceeds for the month of March to the Schoolyard Project. Save Tuesday nights in March for your date nights, your girls’ nights out and “I don’t feel like cooking tonight” and head to Autre Monde! Check out Yelp for the fabulous reviews. Please share with everyone you know!

Update on Schoolyard Presentation to Park District Board
Thanks, everyone, for the huge turnout at Thursday night’s Schoolyard presentation to the Park District Board. We had about 75 people attend to support the project and over 700 sign the petition! It was clear to the Board that there is strong community support for our plan. They did not raise any questions about the plan itself, which was received positively. They strongly encouraged the school district to move ahead with a formal partnership between these two taxing bodies so that the Park District can consider the Schoolyard when they do budget planning in June. The school district has always been supportive, and they welcome this chance to partner with the Park District.
The Wednesday Journal wrote about the meeting. You can find the story on oakpark.com
We are excited about the progress being made and we’ll keep you updated as things move ahead.
Thank you for all your tireless support,
The Irving Schoolyard Project

FREE dental clinic to ALL Irving Elementary students

Irving is pleased to announce that the Children’s Clinic of Oak Park
is offering a FREE dental clinic to ALL Irving Elementary students
from grade K-5th. The services that will be provided are dental exams,
cleanings, and application of sealants.

The dentists from The Children’s Clinic will come to Irving School
with portable dental equipment to provide these services during the
school day. The dates of the clinic are March 21st, 22nd and 23rd. In
order for your child to participate in the program fill out and return
the consent form sent home with your child by March 15th. The
classroom with the highest number of returned consent forms will win a
prize for the classroom. Please call Nurse Jamie with any questions at
708-524-3089.

The Neighborhood Giving Project – Doggie Biscuits

Calling all families!

To do what?    Bake dog biscuits with your kids in your own kitchen using the attached recipes to benefit THE ANIMAL CARE LEAGUE!

Then what?    Drop them off, Saturday, March 10th from 11AM-1PM,  THE ANIMAL CARE LEAGUE, 1011 Garfield Ave.   Drop off your treats in Ziploc bags and we will do the rest!

Special treat! Join us at 10AM for a tour of THE ANIMAL CARE LEAGUE!  Please RSVP to chloe@neighborhoodgivingproject.org  The animals would love to see you there!

What else?

Dog Treat Sale!  Sunday, March 11th,  1-3 PM, Scoville Park (outside the Oak Park Main Library)

Tell your friends and neighbors to come purchase the delicious treats you made for their dogs. All proceeds go to The ANIMAL CARE LEAGUE.

We hope you have fun with this project and enjoy time in the kitchen with your children. Use this opportunity to talk to them about why you are baking to help the homeless animals, and inspire them to think of their own ideas about how to give back to their neighborhood and community.

Visit http://www.animalcareleague.org for more ways you can help, and http://www.neighborhoodgivingproject.org to learn more about our projects. Kids making a difference, one bone at a time.