by mark | Dec 10, 2013 | Director's Blog, News
Bob Hanna Interview With Renee Owen
…and having a conversation!
Click on this link to listen to a Podcast from Asheville Fm’s Living Well program. Host Bob Hanna spends an hour with Rainbow Community School executive director, Renee Owen, interviewing her about her own fascinating history and her approach to education. She talks about her experience working with educators from around the World at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and explains why Rainbow’s inclusion of spirituality in the classroom is a key factor to holistic education.
by Webmaster | Dec 8, 2013 | News
Our campaign was a HUGE success! We are just shy of our $200,000 goal to acquire the church property next to the school. Thank you to everyone who came to the event. There was music, food, fun, and games.
Our fundraiser yesterday raised $24,000, bringing us to $168,000 towards our $200,000 goal. For all who joined us, we are incredibly happy you came!
We want to extend a special thank you to our musicians, Greg Olson, Bobby Miller & the Virginia Daredevils, Adama Dembele & Friends for all of your musical entertainment. We had so many volunteers who contributed their many hours and talents to the event and we express our deepest gratitude. FUEL Food Truck and Catering, GQC Lebanese Street Food, Wicked Weed Brewing, & Bill Drew provided some delicious food and drink – it was all a success.
Thank you also to our Board of Directors, faculty, & staff – without everyone’s help, this whole event might not have been possible. The future of Rainbow is right now and we’re making it happen!
A special thank you to all the members of the Asheville Community who helped make this day possible.
by mark | Dec 7, 2013 | News
The Asheville Citizen-Times wrote a great article about the Rainbow Rising! capital campaign. Click to download the PDF!
by Webmaster | Dec 4, 2013 | News
The fourth graders just finished an archaeology unit and invited the Rainbow Community to come see.
They built a wigwam! We’ll let the photos speak for themselves:
To build the wigwam, the students harvested local grapevine and learned to weave it in and out of the shelter to create the skeleton frame. The Omega students helped the 4th graders complete the project.
Building the wigwam reinforced their Archeology unit because it allowed them to have hands-on experience relatable to the ancient societies archeologists discover.
They also did soap carvings and rock paintings using all-natural materials.
At the end of the unit, and also to celebrate, they taught other classes about Archeology, including the Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 3 classes.
by Webmaster | Dec 1, 2013 | News
The church property is in the background
Bill Sanders / wsanders@citizen-times.com
We’re getting the word out about our wish to expand Rainbow’s campus with the Capital Campaign. If you haven’t heard, we’re having a HUGE fundraiser on Saturday, December 7th called Rainbow Rising!
Our director, Renee Owen, had an interview with Asheville Citizen Times about Rainbow’s goal to acquire the property next to the school.
Some of the highlights included:
- About half of Rainbow’s Haywood Road frontage will be converted from a parking lot to a park for residents and visitors to use as a resting spot and place to interact with students through student-installed interactive informational displays.
- The expansion will dramatically increase the school’s role as a neighborhood resource, with space for new classes and events to join existing meditation classes, a mother-daughter group, parenting classes and the weekly services of the Church of the Garden.
Indeed, so many exciting things are happening, and the future of Rainbow is bright. The school definitely wants to have a bigger role in the Asheville community and one way to do that is with this expansion.
This opportunity is such an illustration of synchronicity.
Last year at this time, plans were in the works to build on the existing campus and staff and students were already bursting at the seams. Faculty circle is held in various classrooms, other classrooms serve as multipurpose rooms – such as the art room serving as an after-school space and the Spanish classroom doubling as a math classroom.
When Rainbow learned that the adjacent Church of God congregation had plans to move, and the fact that it is next door to the Rainbow campus, the Community knew it had to act. It’s one of those opportunities that was just too good to pass up.
Read more about the Asheville Citizen Times article in Sunday’s paper.
by Webmaster | Nov 29, 2013 | News
Our Third Grade Otters are making a difference!
They held a food drive so that families in the area would have food during the Thanksgiving holiday.
What a food drive it was!
The entire school participated and brought in so much food, here’s what West, our 3rd grade teacher reported:
The pantry at children first went from being almost from almost entirely empty to so full that we had to stop unloading boxes!
Indeed! Rainbow Community School and the 3rd graders delivered enough food to feed over 200 children.
Thank you to the Rainbow Community for helping us with this project. We were moved when we found out that 1 in 2 children in public school in the city of Asheville do not have enough to eat. Rainbow Community School is definitely committed to helping make a difference right here in our Asheville community.
