Pleasant Valley Community Foundation rehabs old schoolhouse
Pleasant Valley School was built in 1908, the neglected schoolhouse is now the home of the Pleasant Valley Community Foundation.
–The Pleasant Valley Community Foundation was revived and the nonprofit status reestablished about four years ago by a five-member board that came together to rehab and save an old schoolhouse across the street from the current Pleasant Valley School in San Miguel that had been in a state of neglect.
The group had to secure a lease agreement with the current Pleasant Valley School. After a couple of years, the lease was secured. During that time, the group did some minor cleanup of the site.
“Once we were legally qualified to begin our projects we held a July 4, 2014, flag raising event for about 25 members of the local community on the site of the California 1908 schoolhouse,” board member Connie Butterfield said.
Members of the Pleasant Valley Community Foundation gather in the 1908 schoolhouse it now leases.
The group has held a number of volunteer work days, removed two old portable classrooms, removed dead trees, graded and weeded the grounds and remodeled one bathroom to make it functional. Butterfield said the biggest project the group completed was preparing the foundations and installing new posts at all corners of the building.
“Our goal is to use the facility for community gatherings, educational, entertainment and recreational events that will benefit local neighbors,” Butterfield said. “We currently offer a yoga class once a week, and it serves as a rehearsal hall for a local band, Wine Country Troubadours. We hope to offer dance classes and seminars.”
The original hardwood floors of the 1908 Pleasant Valley School are now being restored. The funds were raised at the end of October.
The foundation’s first official fundraising event, a Harvest Supper, was held at the end of October for more than 50 attendees at a local barn, whose use was donated to the nonprofit for the event. The dinner fundraiser included music and a silent auction that raised enough money to proceed with the foundation’s repair and refinishing of the original wood floors of the group’s building.
Butterfield said that future efforts include running the electrical line underground to the building in order to remove the pole that is currently standing at the original entrance at of the building.
“We’d also like to organize a volunteer paint party to prep and paint the exterior,” Butterfield said. “We still need more dead trees removed, and some simple landscape improvements.”
A future project that group plans to dive into is fully exploring the records of the teachers and people who attended school there over the years.
“We are starting to hear the stories from the past,” Butterfield said. “This [puts us] in a unique position since Pleasant Valley School is the only school in the Pleasant Valley School District, and has been functioning and serving the community uninterrupted since the old schoolhouse was built in 1908, and we still have the original upright piano.”
Those wishing to volunteer should contact the group via Facebook. Donations may be sent to Pleasant Valley Community Foundation, 2030 Ranchita Canyon Road, San Miguel, CA 93451.
Volunteers work inside the Pleasant Valley Community Foundation’s 1908 schoolhouse.
