Tea for two (times 30) Tea for two (times 30) (December 19, 2003)

Education angel honored at Rengstorff House

By Grace Rauh

For the first time in more than 40 years, Mickey Wheat didn't throw a holiday tea party.

Instead, the Mountain View Educational Foundation held one in her honor and Wheat provided the guest list.

The longtime education advocate and fundraiser held court at the Rengstorff House last Thursday, Dec. 11, welcoming 60 friends to the tea party-cum-fundraiser for the foundation, which supports schools in the Mountain View-Whisman School District.

Wheat formerly hosted the annual ladies tea -- that also functioned in recent years as an education fundraiser -- at her Los Altos home. But when she moved to Carmel last year, it looked like the fundraiser, which typically raised $3,000, might disappear with her.

Foundation members refused to let it go. They decided to host their own tea and invite Wheat back from Carmel. Tea partygoers were encouraged once again to donate to the educational foundation, and they did with $2,500.

"Being raised in Pasadena, one gave teas," Wheat explained, as she stood in the front hallway of the historic home underneath a ball of ivy last week. She looked at ease surrounded by friends who sipped from white china cups and nibbled on the array of homemade sandwiches and Christmas cookies.

Although most of the women on Wheat's guest-list have grown-up children who are no longer in school, that never stopped Wheat from bringing them up to speed on local education issues and encouraging them to donate to the schools.

The educational foundation is hoping to find more people like Wheat, who champion education and reach out to new donors, said foundation president Amy Beare.

Wheat first made her mark on the former Mountain View School District in 1994, when she helped get the Tools for Schools program up and running.

"She heard about a parent-teacher organization that was trying to raise money for various materials in the school, like classroom globes," Beare said.

Wheat then asked the superintendent, "If you had one wish, what would it be."

The answer was books. Wheat was horrified to find the school library stocked with outdated reading material from the 1950s. One such book encouraged girls to keep their figures so they could be airline stewardesses.

Over the next few years, Wheat helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the district, and under her watch, the libraries were outfitted with new books, Beare said.

Wheat quickly became an important fixture in the local school community and an especially treasured friend to the foundation when she transformed her annual tea into a fundraiser for the organization a few years ago.

Wheat asked her friends to write the education group a check in lieu of gifts for the hostess, and with those words, her party became an awareness-raising and fundraising event.

"She's a 'do it' person," said Cookie Hoover, Wheat's longtime friend and neighbor who attended the holiday teas from the beginning.

Wheat was touched that the foundation wanted to continue her tea party tradition.

"I was overwhelmed when they suggested it," she said. "I hope that they will find other people who have cared as much about the schools."

Beare agrees. She would love to find another person like Wheat.

"She sort of came along and lent a hand. She didn't have children in the schools. She's an angel," Beare said.

E-mail Grace Rauh at grauh@mv-voice.com

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