Welcome back to the UUCD Minds Hands Hearts Blog!

Hello everyone, I am so sorry for not updating the blog more often. We are looking into the best options for social networking solutions for our projects :)

We ended up with a fabulous year of fundraising for the Grace Foundation....nearly $4,000! WOW! They can really use it too, because the Grace Foundation is actually in danger of bankruptcy right now. The corporate banks who were supposed to help with the Susanville horses have not come through and the cost of caring for the horses is staggering. Please go to the Grace website and find out how you can HELP!

Our new charity for the 2012-13 church year was voted on by ALL youth who were at church on Sept 30, and the winner is......FREE THE CHILDREN!

This organization is based in Canada but has offices all over, and their goal is to END child exploitation and slavery. It was started in 1995 by a 12-year old Canadian boy named Craig Kielburger:

Craig flipped through the Toronto Star in search of the comics, he was struck by a story. A raw, but courageous story of a boy his age named Iqbal.

Iqbal Masih was born in South Asia and sold into slavery at the age of four. In his short life, he had spent six years chained to a carpet-weaving loom. Iqbal captured the world’s attention by speaking out for children’s rights.

Eventually, Iqbal’s wide media coverage caught the attention of those who wished to silence him. At 12, Iqbal lost his life defending the rights of children (he was murdered).

What Craig learned from Iqbal’s story was that the bravest voice can live in the smallest body.
Craig had to do something.

Craig gathered together a small group of his Grade 7 classmates from his Thornhill, Ontario, school and Free The Children was born.

Free the children from poverty. Free the children from exploitation. Free the children from the notion that they are powerless to effect change.

Those are the messages that sparked Craig’s passion, and continue to fuel the mission of the organization today. Every day the movement grows and every day more young people are free to achieve their fullest potential.

Today, Free The Children is an international charity and educational partner, with more than 1.7 million youth involved in our innovative education and development programs in 45 countries.

One of our own youth, Jaymelyn, has already established a connection with this organization and has already held her own fundraiser for them...she put on a talent show! We are proud to be supporting this organization this year!

VOTE FOR GRACE FOUNDATION!!!

The Animal Rescue Site 

$300,000 Shelter Challenge 2012

The Animal Rescue Site is currently hosting its Shelter Challenge 2012. During this challenge they are allowing the public to choose, by vote, which eligible Petfinder.com animal rescue organizations will receive grants to help animals in need!

The Grace Foundation is one of the eligible animal rescues!

Please click on the link below and cast your votes to help us win a grant! Each person may cast one vote per day.

Voting is open through midnight on March 18, 2012

Vote for a Shelter @ The Animal Rescue Site

www.theanimalrescuesite.com

GO AND VOTE, EVERYONE!!!!

Message from the Grace Foundation!

Greetings! With January coming to an end, the foaling season is quickly sneaking up on us. Caring for the Susanville mares throughout their pregnancies has been an overwhelming task, both financially and otherwise, and helping them through their foaling will be no different.   Thankfully Grace has been blessed by the wonderful support of our volunteers! We have had several generous people supply us with trailers that will be used to house staff during this time so that Grace can provide the mares and foals with around the clock care and observation. However, there is still much to be done before the foals begin to arrive. We need to move forward with building and renovating stalls for the mares and their foals.   In addition to building more stalls for the horses, Grace is also going to be making improvements to our kennel area that will allow us to better care for the dogs we rescue.    If you have any construction/building experience please bring your tools and come out starting this Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 2pmto help Grace get these projects accomplished.    These projects will be ongoing tasks over the next several weeks so if you can't make it out to the ranch this weekend but would still like to help, either during the week or on another weekend, please contact Jeanne, our office manager, at (916) 941-0800.    You do not have to have attended a volunteer orientation to help with construction so please pass this along to your friends and family. We can use as much help as we can get!  Also, please keep your eye out tomorrow for another email with updates on recent happenings at Grace, an introduction to our new Directors, and volunteer needs for each department.   For those of you who would like to help in other ways please check out our wish list below and the email coming tomorrow. Building materials or gift cards to Home Depot :)  Trucks and other vehicles for use at the ranch   Horse trailers   We hope to see some of you out at the ranch tomorrow and would like to thank all of you for your hard work and generous support! Beth DeCaprio   Executive Director

Come and Give Yourself Away!

 

February 11, 2012, is your chance to give a little of yourself (your time, heart, and energy) to the Grace Foundation. They have taken in SO MANY needy animals and they could really use a lot of enthusiastic volunteers. We will be volunteering that Saturday morning, doing....whatever they have for us! Afterwards there will be time for a tour, feeding the horses, and we hope everyone will come together for pizza. You can sign up at the welcome table before or after service!


Here are some photos from our recent trip up to the Grace Foundation:

This is Ebony, one of the horses we are sponsoring. She is so sweet!!!

This is Heidi, the other horse we are sponsoring. We made little banners to hold up in front of the horses with our "team name" on it.

The kids had SO MUCH FUN and we were there for so long feeding them carrots and treats. I can't wait for Feb. 11!!

Steph

WE VISITED THE GRACE FOUNDATION!!!

Post and photos coming soon! It was a GREAT visit and we are going again after the first of the year, in case you missed it!

Very Important Happenings at the Grace Foundation

We had a fabulously successful Social Service Sunday in October where we made LOTS of horse treats! We have so many donated ingredients left over that we will make some more, and then take them all up to the Grace Foundation on Nov. 20. Anyone is welcome to join us, to get a tour of the facility and help feed treats to horses!

We will also be choosing a horse to sponsor this year, so we hope to meet that horse as well.

If you look at Grace's homepage, you will see that dozens of horses were taken in from a terribly abusive situation in Susanville, CA. The owner of the ranch where the horses were living is in jail on 70 counts of felony animal cruelty. It has apparently been in the news as well. There are videos to watch regarding this situation on their homepage. I understand it contains imagery at the beginning of the ranch where the horses were living which is upsetting. But then it shows the story of three of the surviving horses. Get out your tissues!!!

We want to do as much as possible to help this organization!!! Help give your kids a feeling of purpose, offer them extra chores to do or let them cash in the recycling and donate the money on Sunday at Spirited Worship.

 Steph

Welcome to....The Grace Foundation of Northern California

Hi everyone! If you haven't already heard, our kids voted and chose to help animals this year. So, our new charity is The Grace Foundation of Northern California. We are really excited to help this wonderful organization, and...it's in El Dorado Hills, which means we can visit!

Sunday, Oct. 16 at 11:15 is our first Social Service Sunday, and we will be making homemade horse treats. We will take them up to the Grace Foundation in person, and anyone who would like to come along is welcome!

Another thing we will do on Social Service Sunday is choose a horse to sponsor for the year. We hope to collect $100 per month to send in for the horse's feed and care. I am hoping the kids get really excited about this...maybe they can think of ways at home to help earn money for our horse...or maybe we can even add a second horse!

Here is a video about the Grace Foundation (get out your tissues...):
I LOVE this one....this really shows how much animals are loved here at Grace!
Hope we have a great fundraising year!


Steph