It started, as do so many such stories, with a single meeting.
Vera Blanquie, then a PTA member at Marguerite Hahn Elementary School, attended one. "And that was it," she said.
The meeting was of the Education Foundation of Cotati and Rohnert Park. Ten years later Blanquie, 54, is its president.
The 27-year-old foundation is Rohnert Park's oldest nonprofit group and raises money for 11 schools in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District.
"It's amazing how many parents don't know about us, and there are even some teachers who still don't," Blanquie said.
Changing that is part of her mission as president, says Blanquie, a stay-at-home mom who says her volunteer work is a full-time job.
"It's almost like marketing," she said. "When I go out and meet people, I've always got my Education Foundation hat on."
Blanquie, a 30-year Rohnert Park resident, brings a tireless spirit to the foundation's activities, said Fred Brokaw, its longest-serving board member.
"Vera has just unbelievable energy and imagination," Brokaw said.
Over the years, the foundation has given away more than $850,000 in grants to district schools. In May, it issued 63 grants totaling $42,470 for the upcoming school year.
But that sum, Blanquie said, pales next to the $109,000 in requests the foundation received.
"When we tell people we gave away $42,000, they say, 'Wow, that's great.' I mean I'm proud of that, but it's not enough. It's really our dream next year to grant every grant requested."
Blanquie approaches her work with a clear understanding of what's at stake, said Ellen Giunchigliani, a teacher at Waldo Rohnert Park Elementary School.
"She brings a great enthusiasm and respect for what's going on in the schools," Giunchigliani said. "She understands how hard teachers work and that getting those grants really makes a difference."
Grants this year were given for things ranging from classroom projects to cameras, laptop computers to books, sewing machines to play equipment.
Blanquie — who has also volunteered with youth baseball and Rohnert Park's community talent show — has two sons, both now out of school. But she entertains no thoughts of leaving the foundation.
"I'm doing it for the kids, the kids of the community," she said. "It's small, but in my own small way I can do something. It sounds like a cliche, but if everyone does a little bit, we can get something done."
She said all but one of the foundation's 12 board members no longer have children in city schools, something she would like to change in order to plant the seeds for the next generation of activity.
The foundation puts on five major fundraisers a year, the largest of which, Sharing of the Green, is held in March at the DoubleTree Hotel.
Blanquie's ambitions are to move the foundation into the another fundraising tier — a task that will require more volunteers and a higher profile.
"We're really small potatoes here in Rohnert Park," she said. "If we raise $20,000 it's a big deal, but it's not like San Francisco or Marin. We need to raise more than $20,000."
One step toward that goal is getting more school staff involved in the foundation, she said. "My dream is to get a teacher from every school on the board."
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.
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