Tile Night Fosters Community, Celebrates Students in Bennett Valley

Students at the Yulupa and Strawberry elementary schools in Santa Rosa’s Bennett Valley Union School District strengthened their ties to their school communities during the long-awaited return of Tile Night. The event, held in February, featured choir and band performances, student artwork, and a hands-on tile-making activity that allowed students to leave a lasting mark by contributing their tiles to permanent installations at their schools.

Organized by the Bennett Valley Education Foundation, the event had been on hiatus since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related funding constraints, foundation Co-President Allison Gillespie said. This year’s celebration was made possible, in part, by SchoolsRule Sonoma County.

The education foundation was one of more than two dozen such groups to receive funds from SchoolsRule Sonoma County’s first distribution in September. A full list of the fundraiser’s recipients is available here.

“It beautifies and personalizes the school,” Gillespie said of the tile project. “It memorializes their time in elementary school, and to be able to do that in an artistic way, I think it’s very special.” ​

Three hundred tiles were created at the event, which brought together students, families, and school staff from both schools. The theme for this year’s celebration was STEAM, or science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics. Visit the Bennett Valley Education Foundation’s Facebook page and website for more information about the Tile Night event and the foundation’s work in their community.