Helping a Cause

Hello everyone!  Did everyone have a good weekend?

This week I want to talk about an awesome cause that my whole family takes a part in and cares deeply about.  It is an organization that we have helped to build from the ground up, which makes it even more meaningful to us.  This would be the nonprofit animal shelter Valley Animal Haven.

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We have known the owner since for about 12 years, so when she told us that she was starting her own animal shelter, we were completely on board to help.  We helped with fundraisers to raise money for supplies, we volunteer countless hours, and help with different adoption events.

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In other words, we are there a lot.

We were there on the day that we opened the doors at the first official shelter location.  My whole family became board members to help out even more.  My sister did a 4-H fundraiser to help get another kennel for the dogs.  My dad has built all of our indoor cat areas by hand.  My family has rescued multiple dogs to take to the shelter and have adopted 3 (Rozy, Munchy, and Maggie), from the shelter.

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And the shelter continues to grow.

The shelter was started in 2014 and had barely any adoptions.  And so far this year, we have almost hit 600 adoptions!  This includes dogs, cats, rabbits, turtles, and guinea pigs.  Honestly, we don’t really know how we acquired and adopted out the rabbits, turtles, and guinea pigs, but we will take it!

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We have also had many fundraisers that have helped out the shelter with some finances.  There have been garage sales, dog washes, costume contests, dog walks, and many more.  Any little bit helps them out.

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But the most important thing is if you want to help out.  You can donate money or supplies to the shelter, but we are always looking for volunteers.  Every little thing helps.  Even if you can only come for an hour and help feed the puppies, we will take the help.  And there are so many dogs and cats that are looking for homes.  If you want to check out Valley Animal Haven’s website, you can look at it by clicking on the picture below.

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But you don’t have to just help at animal shelters!  There are plenty of local nonprofit organizations in your area that are looking for help.  Nonprofits require a lot more work than you expect, so any help that they can get would be greatly appreciated.  You can look in your local newspaper or use the handy dandy Google to see what is in your area.  There may be something in your area that you absolutely care about that you can help with! Give them a call and find out how your can help!

Thank you so much for checking out Valley Animal Haven and this blog post!  We helped with fundraisers to raise money for supplies, we volunteer countless hours, and help with different adoption events. There are many tools out there to help plan different nonprofit fundraising events. So if you have a cause you like to support check out how you can create your own nonprofit fundraiser.  Have a wonderful week!

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Valley Animal Haven Animal Shelter Volunteer Appreciation

Ahhh! A day off from school here is in the U.S.! Teachers always treasure these days! So do the kids!

My preschoolers still talk about the day ‘the other Miss Pam’, from Valley Animal Haven Shelter came to school and brought a dog and cat to visit. They loved being able to donate food and other items to the shelter. A couple of weeks ago, Pam, the director and our friend, had a Volunteer Appreciation Open House, so of course, our whole family was there!

animal shelter volunteer chalkboard dog sign

I took care of the decorating, since that’s what I love to do! I drew the design on the chalkboard above and made the banner below from dog scrapbook paper. Lauren and I had gone to the 99 cent store for tablecloths and found these awesome pawprint balloons!

animal shelter volunteer banner

Remember the burlap pieces we stamped with pawprints? Here they are decorating the food tables. This is the ‘sweets’ table.

animal shelter volunteer dessert table

Yummy! The cookies on the bottom are some of my favorite!

animal shelter volunteer cookies and kisses

There were also chips and dips, and fruit and veggie trays.

animal shelter volunteer food table

The sign-in table was full of paw-prints!

animal shelter volunteer openhouse sign in table

Aren’t these beautiful! Love all these bright colors on a dreary day! These were given to some of the volunteers who had donated more than 300 hours of time in the past year!

animal shelter volunteer flowers

Each volunteer also received one of these special pins with a wonderful thank you!

animal shelter volunteer gift pins

There was also a drawing for door prizes. Haley won the sign ‘You Had Me At Woof” and Steve won the ornament.

animal shelter volunteer door prizes

Pawprints and kisses!

animal shelter pawprints and kisses

Here is one cutie, Hannah, to say hello and thank you! She even dressed up for the occasion!

animal shelter volunteer dog cutie hannah

Here is the whole group. There are many more volunteers out there too, but these are the ones who came for this special occasion. Pam is the 6th one from the left in the royal blue shirt.

animal shelter volunteer group picture

This was an incredible year for Valley Animal Haven. There were so many special people and businesses who gave time and donations to give the shelter a great first year. There were portable buildings, kennels, food, pet supplies, a trailer and many more items donated. There were several grants awarded to the shelter and even a money award for a contest that was entered. The most important part was the adoptions and saving the animals. There were 385 cats and dogs (and 2 rabbits) placed in ‘fur’ever homes in 2015! It is so amazing and such a wonderful thing Pam and all the volunteers are doing for animals! We are so blessed as a family to be part of such a great and amazing organization.

Sunshine and Blessings

Corner News-January 16, 2016

Welcome to another edition of the Corner News!  This weeks edition is very short and sweet, but it is all worth it in the end.

Last night, my mom and I were creating burlap tablecloths for an Open House at Valley Animal Haven, the shelter we volunteer with.  We decided that we wanted to stamp some paw prints onto the burlap to make them more personal for the shelter.  So, taking two different stamps and lots of black paint, we got started on our project.

And here is what our dining room looked like when we were done!

burlap paw print

They turned out super cute!  The randomness of the paw prints makes the design even cuter!

 

And why not just look at the handy work of one of the beautiful paw prints.  Isn’t it splendid?

single paw print

So this is the big excitement of what happened this week.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

Corner News-October 22, 2015

I can’t believe it’s Friday and time for Corner News! I’m not ready!!! I’ve been helping out my friend at the shelter get ready for Saturdays Bark in the Park, plus it is my little (almost) 3 years old great niece’s birthday this weekend and I am trying to make something special for her too! I had a great time last week playing hide-n-seek with her. You know, she tells you where to hide and then comes to find you?! Ha! I miss those days!

In other Valley Animal Haven Animal Shelter news…

Remember when I told you the shelter was in a competition? The results of the HomeAgain Helps “Shelter of the Year” contest are in AND Valley Animal Haven is officially a Runner-Up in our very first National Competition. We will receive $2,500 cash, a new computer, a new IPad, and an assortment of medical supplies from Merck Animal Health. Yippee!!! This is so awesome! Valley Animal Haven is such a small shelter and just starting out, so this is so amazing! The infirmary is going to be completed plus a cat building. This has been such a great year, I can’t wait to see what next year brings!

I am going to dress up as Mary Poppins for Halloween next week. Here is my inspiration…

Mary Poppins

All I need is the carpet bag and I am set!

I also told you about the hedgehog pumpkin I did a few years ago. I believe it came from a Martha Stewart idea. Here she is!

Hedghog Pumpkin

Isn’t she adorable!

hedgehog pumpkin halloween

The lights actually look like quills in the dark…

hedgehog pumpkin in the dark

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Sunshine and Blessings

Corner News-October 9, 2015

Welcome to Corner News! There is always fun stuff to share with you all on Friday!

Remember these frames I showed you a looong time ago?

pawprint collage

I finally got the project done! Aren’t they so cute!

Pawprint and Picture Set

Yes, I actually got each of the animals to put their paw in the ink and then onto the paper!

Ezzy and Chica

Even the cats!

Scamp, Kiara and Kenya

Last week, my friend Pam, from Valley Animal Haven, came to visit my kids at the preschool. She brought Phoebe and Mandy in to meet the kids.The kids donated a whole stack of pet food, cat litter and other items for the shelter. It was a great community service project for them.

VAH at the Preschool with Phoebe

VAH at the Preschool Mandy

I’ve also been working on cleaning out some of my stuff. I’ve gone through my clothes and now have done my jewelry. Here is one of my jewelry boxes, but I have a few different place I keep my jewelry.

Jewelry Organization

Here is the new look, for some of my jewelry. Haley used to have this mirror in her room, but took it down. In my house, things like this find a new life in another part of the house!

jewelry makeover

jewelry mirror frame

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Sunshine and Blessings