From the Executive Director – Fall News

I hope you are all able to stay warm and cozy today. It has been a very busy month. I wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who has helped out.  There are many exciting events and projects are underway.

This has been a fantastic year for Hearts & Hooves thanks to each and everyone of you. In celebration we will be having a Potluck Appreciation BBQ in October in the evening. I am working to get the information out but please mark it on your calenders. We will be extending a warm welcome to many Recreational Directors, Therapists, and Teachers we have worked with on visits this past year as they to are part of our successful team. If you’d like to help with making this day a hit there is lot to be done and the more hands we have the better it will be.

With Christmas coming we have already started on making ornaments and Christmas cards for our Gift of Love Campaign and I would appreciate any one who might be interested in helping make the cards, and ornaments, as well as those of you who would help us share this with the community. We will also be planning a community walk where we will go door to door with the horses and our ornaments promoting our mission and fundraising at the same time.

We are also pleased to be part of The Festival of Trees in Sherwood Park, where we will have a Hearts & Hooves tree on display, and a booth to sell Christmas ornaments as a fundraiser. We will be volunteering to help kids make crafts at the the Festival..Tons of fun!! A huge thank you to Susan for making this possible. A kudos to Susan for linking the Adult Day Program seniors with Hearts & Hooves, in a united effort to make Christmas Ornaments. We will be going to visit the many seniors who have been working hard to help us make ornaments on October 14th right here in Sherwood Park.

In November we will have a promo table at the CFR Rodeo where we will also be selling our ornaments and such and sharing with many people the good work we do.
With continued support from Salisbury Greenhouse we will be hosting an evening to remember. On this night we will have 20 various vendors meet under the same roof to sell their goods.

• We are looking for vendors for housewares, clothes, jewelry, make-up, and much more.
• So far we have Pampered Chef, Discovery Toys, Tupperware, but would welcome anyone who may like to participate.
• We ask vendors to donate a % of their nights sales to H&H.
• We would like very much to make this an annual event.

If you should know someone please email me and let me know so that I may contact them and invite them to join us. This event will require a great deal of leg work and help in the planning and set-up of this event. For more information contact me.

Speaking of annual events, we have begun planning our first Annual Golf Tournment to be held in Fort Saskatchewan. Seeing as I do not even golf..I am eager to invite those with more know how then me to jump on board. If you’d like to help out we are well underway with the intial planning stages so email me to find out more.

Our new website should be up by the end of September and our new brochures done around the same time. We are very excited to update all our old information. We are really wanting to put together a slide show for the Volunteer celebration in October if anyone is interested in putting that together that would be wonderful.

We are still working hard to raise the last $3000 needed to purchase our truck from Welcome Ford. For those of you who do not know we put a deposit down on a 2006, F250 and with hopeful hearts we aim to raise the money through our various fundraising efforts this coming November.

Thanks to many of you, and to people in the community we have raised enough to cover half of Roxy’s vet bills we also hope with a united effort we can raise another $500 to pay our friends at Westwind for making our little girl healthy. Roxy is doing great!

All the horses are doing well. Moe is way too fat but thankfully we have had many volunteers out to walk hime and exercise him. Our friends Sunny and George will be back on October 2nd with their buddy Mable. We will be a full house come winter with a total of 9 minis.

A fun job coming up will be shaving some of our horses, so if you are interested in coming out and helping bath the horses and giving haircuts please let me know. The more the merrier. We will set a date when we know who all is interested.

I’d like to share the exciting news that I have been asked by Chicken Soup for the Soul “Horse Lovers Soul” to submit a story. I have been working on the stories and will post the final three I will submit for all of you to read.

As well I have been asked by Alberta Learning to help develop a High School option course about Animal Assisted Therapy. Very exciting!!

I have also been asked to be a guest lectures at Lakeland College, and Concordia College. Hearts & Hooves will soon become a placement for 4th year Psycholgy students as well as a Community Partner Placement with the U of A.

Coming up in October we are hosting our second Level I Workshop to teach others on how to develop their own Equine Guided Activities & Assisted Therapy Programs. So far we have selected 2 definite candidates one flying in from P.E.I. and another from Armstrong, BC, we may also have a woman from Belgium joining us. Currently we have 2 spots left. Please visit the website to learn more.

I am off and running as always but please consider yourselves invited to any and all dates on the calendars, and should you like more information please call me or email me. If you are planning on attending please RSVP me via email. As we get busier with visits your continued support and help is so very appreciated. If you would like to lend a hand in anyway give me a call. Thank you All.

Michelle Kropp
Executive Director
visit our website at
www.heartsandhoovesedmonton.org