Blog Archives
Out With a Bang!
As the clock ticks forward to the end of 2011, we reflect on the last year and look forward to the next. I’ve already outlined my plans for 2012 (or at least some well-intended resolutions) but I’m not yet ready to leave behind 2011. The reason? I’d like to end 2011 on a positive note — a note that will do some good. Specifically, a bank note. Cash. Dinero. Dolla dolla bills,y’all. Dough. Moola. You get it.
The Lexington Humane Society, like many other charities, is reaching out for one last check. The money will help Lexington Humane and inadvertently, you. It’ll be good for tax purposes…and your heart!
So click HERE to make a BIG difference. No amount is too small.
Here’s the plea from LHS:
While we have made great progress in 2011, there is still so much to be done. Sadly, I know we will again be caring for thousands of animals in the upcoming year, but I am confident we will be able to meet their needs with your support. A gift from you will truly make a difference. Your belief in our life-saving work and generous donation will ensure we are able to meet the continuing need for our services. So, I will ask for your help one last time for 2011. We are looking to you for crucial help in achieving our mission. Please make your year-end gift today! The animals count on us…and we are counting on you. Please remember, the Lexington Humane Society does not receive funding from the government or any national animal welfare groups. Our success depends on compassionate individuals in our community who care about the plight of animal’s right here in our home town. Thank you for your support. We wish you a very happy, healthy, and peaceful new year!
Shop for Good!
Kentucky friends! This Christmas, head to the Lexington Humane to do your Christmas shopping! Yes they have oodles of adorable puppies, kitties, big dogs, little dogs, cats, bunnies etc… But they also have a special Holiday Shop with toys and presents galore! And not just for your four-legged friend, the shop is filled with cute little outfits for children, deco for the home, and tons of other great gifts. Best part? Everything there benefits the Humane Society!
Can’t make it to LHS? Shop online here!
Feel Good Friday – Be Someone’s Angel
It’s that time of year—your heart is open for giving and you’re looking for the right place to donate your hard-earned money. There are SO many places to do so, but this Friday I’d like to make a couple of recommendations; be an angel!
There are two ways to be an angel:
1. You can purchase a ‘Food Angel’ from any Kroger. All you have to do is pick up one of these angels, and $25 will be added to your grocery bill. Your money will feed a family in our community. Details:
Holiday Food Drive) This year LEX18, Kroger, and The Salvation Army are making it more convenient than ever to help families in need throughout our viewing area (Fayette, Boyle, Clark, Franklin, Jessamine, Madison, Mercer, Montgomery, Powell, Rowan, Scott, Woodford) have a warm meal this holiday. Beginning Thursday, November 24th through Christmas Eve, when you pick up a Food Angel from The Salvation Army Angel Tree at any participating Kroger, a tax deductible donation of $25 will be added to your grocery bill which will be used to feed a needy family. When you donate at your neighborhood Kroger, that money will stay in your community.
Fayette County
o 704 Euclid Ave
o 4101 Tates Creek
o 150 W Lowry Lane
o 1650 Bryan Station Rd
o 1808 Alexandria Drive
o 3650 Boston Road
o 344 Romany Road
o 4750 Hartland Pkwy
o 1060 Chinoe Road
o 1600 Leestown Road
o 3101 Richmond Road
o 3175 Beaumont Circle
Woodford County
o 525 Marsailles Road
Franklin County
o 1309 US 127 South
o 302 Brighton Park Blvd
Clark County
o 1661 Bypass Highway
Powell County
o 179 West College Street
Montgomery County
o 810 Indian Mound Drive
Rowan County
o 300 Trademore Center
Mercer County
o US Highway 127
Boyle County
o 200 Skywatch Drive
Madison County
o 890 Richmond Plaza
Jessamine County
o 170 Bellerive Boulevard
o 995 South Mao 200 East Brannon Rd
2. Or you can be a child’s angel on behalf of the Salvation Army!
The deadline to buy gifts for an angel in Lexington is December 11th! Sadly, there are more than 1,000 kids who have not been chosen. Pick up an angel at any of these locations:
• Fayette Mall (near Dillard’s)
• Whitaker Banks (Lexington and Georgetown)
• ADI Appliance Distributors (Lexington)
• Glenn Nissan (Lexington)
• Shell Stations (Lexington and Georgetown)
• Walmart (Georgetown & Nicholasville)
About the Salvation Army Angel Tree Program:
The Angel Tree brings joy to financially disadvantaged children (ages birth to 17) by providing Christmas presents and new clothing.
The children belong to families who are at or below poverty level. There are a number of reasons why parents apply to the Angel Tree such as job loss, low wages, and high medical bills. Sometimes grandparents raising their grandchildren on a limited income apply for help. The parents/guardians of the children complete an application at The Salvation Army and are screened by social workers to ensure they are eligibility.
• Select a child’s angel card
• Purchase a new gift(s) using the information on the card as a guide. It is not necessary to purchase everything on the card.
• Return the new unwrapped gift(s) with the angel card secured by December 11th to The Salvation Army’s Christmas Center at 1030 South Broadway, Lexington, KY or to one of the Angel Tree displays. Note: Shell Stations will serve as an angel card pick up location only.
The Salvation Army picks up all angel gifts and transports them to its Christmas Center at 1030 South Broadway where volunteers work to arrange the gifts in numerical order (using the code number on each tag). This year, parents/guardians will pick up their gifts and food package December 19 and 20.
Christmas Time Store Needs Help
Clean out your closet! That’s the message from folks at the Catholic Action Center. They’re asking for your old toys, gently used and previously loved, to be a part of their 16th annual Christmas Store. “(We’ll take) any kind of excess,” says Jenny Ramsey with the Catholic Action Center. She asks people to, “Go through their things that they know will bring joy on Christmas morning.”
Volunteers are busy packing up boxes and boxes of toys to be taken to a warehouse at Midland Avenue and Second Street in Lexington. That’s the site of the Catholic Action Center’s “Christmas Store,” where thousands of families can shop for their children for free.
Last year, more than 15,000 children were recipients of presents purchased from the store. This year, the Catholic Action Center expects that number to be even higher. So thanks to the generous donations of several local businesses, they now have two buildings to host their store out of, right at the corner of Midland Avenue and Second Street. “It’s about being able to share the joy of Christmas with your children, without feeling left out,” says Ramsey.
Here’s how it works: Adults can show up on December 21st or 22nd from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. to be paired with a personal shopper, to pick out the perfect gift. Families can also shop December 23rd from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
But before families can descend on the warehouse, the Catholic Action Center is asking for donations of toys, and lots of them. They’re asking people to clean out their closets and bring in their gently used toys, clothes, books or anything that would make a good gift.
“It’s amazing the parents come back and tell us the stories in January what it meant to them and to their kids, that they felt more normal, more part of society,” says Ramsey.
If you have items to donate, you can drop them off at the Catholic Action Center or at any of these locations:
Chinoe Center – 1060 Chinoe Road
Crossroads Christian Church: 4128 Todds Road
Family Practice Association: 1775 Alysheba Way, Suite 20
GodsNet: 614 E 7th Street (10 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays)
Kroger on Romany: 344 Romany Road
Kroger at Beaumont: 3199 Beaumont Centre Circle
Kroger at Brannon Crossing: 200 E Brannon
Lexington Christian Academy: 3082 Stanford Drive
Man O’War Place Shopping Center: Richmond Road and N. Locust Hill Drive
Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary: Clays Mill Road
Moore Drive Businesses (Orlando’s Party & Pantry) 160 Moore Drive.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton: 1730 Summerhill Drive
Sts. Peter and Paul School: 423 W Short Street
UK Newman Center: 320 Rose Lane
Winchester Road Christmas Store warehouse: 772 Winchester Road
CAC is also asking for volunteers to help sort through the toys.
For more information, call 859-514-7210 or email caclexky@insightbb.com. www.godsnet.info
Feel-Good Friday: Spread Christmas Cheer!
Veterans – And a Scary Connection
With Veterans Day tomorrow, I wanted to share something that is too close for comfort for me. My grandfather passed away from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease…So many of you have helped me fundraise for this cause, and thank you very much!
With all the money raised each year, we are closer and closer to finding a cure…and although we don’t have one, every day we learn valuable information that can help us get there. Something we all need to be aware of is the scary connection between ALS and our military.
As the daughter of a Marine, this is something that terrifies me. Our heroes are twice as likely to develop ALS as those who have not served.
Take a look at this PSA from the ALS Association about the extremely high number of veterans who are diagnosed with ALS each year. What better way to honor our military this Veterans Day, and find a cure for this terrible disease that affects so many of them. Also, join the roll call of veterans here.
Happy Mother’s Day!
I literally have the best mom in the world. Don’t try to argue with me. Yours is not better. Mine is the best. Happy Mother’s Day to the best mom! I love you!
V-day Surprise!
A match made in space… 
Via, the Associated Press: A rendezvous, 210 million miles away!
LOS ANGELES (AP) – After a long-distance courtship, a NASA spacecraft is set to meet up with its celestial sweetheart – a comet half the size of Manhattan that had an encounter with another spacecraft not long ago.
The rendezvous between Stardust and comet Tempel 1 occurs on Valentine’s Day some 210 million miles from Earth. Hurtling at 24,000 mph, Stardust will fly within 125 miles of the potato-shaped comet, snapping pictures along the way.
If successful, it will be the first time that scientists will have before-and-after images of Tempel 1, allowing them to observe any changes on the uneven surface.
In 2005, Tempel 1 received a not-so-loving visit from another NASA probe named Deep Impact, which fired a copper bullet into the comet on the Fourth of July that sparked cosmic fireworks and excavated a crater. The high-speed crash hurled out so much dust and debris that Deep Impact failed to see the manmade hole even as it beamed back dazzling pictures of other surface features.
Scientists hope to get a second chance with Stardust, which is expected to pass near the 2005 bull’s-eye.
“I’m going to be sleepless on Valentine’s Day and sending a lot of love to this comet,” quipped mission co-investigator Pete Schultz of Brown University.
Comets, irregular bodies of ice and dust that orbit the sun, are frozen leftover building blocks of the solar system, which formed when a huge cloud of gas and dust collapsed about 4.5 billion years ago. Studying comets could yield clues to the birth of the solar system.
Tempel 1 is not the first comet that Stardust will get cozy with. In 2004, it swooped past comet Wild 2 and captured a bounty of interstellar and comet dust. The probe jettisoned samples to Earth in a capsule that parachuted to the Utah desert – the first time that a spacecraft had fetched particles from a comet back to
Earth.
Stardust has traveled 3 ½ billion miles since launching from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 1999. Because it had ample fuel after visiting Wild 2, NASA decided to recycle it for another job. For the past four years, Stardust had its sight on Tempel 1, adjusting its path several times and even using gravity assist from Earth to put it on target for a Valentine’s date.
“It’s got some mileage on it, but it’s still working well,” said project manager Tim Larson of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the encore mission.
Unlike the trip to Wild 2, which cost $300 million, Tempel 1 at $29 million will be a cheap date by space mission standards.
Stardust will navigate autonomously during closest approach, which is expected to occur at 8:37 p.m. PST Monday. Scientists should know within 20 minutes if the flyby was successful.
During the encounter, Stardust will take dozens of
high-resolution images of Tempel 1′s nucleus and coma, a fuzzy halo of gas and dust. It will also use its two dust detectors to measure the size and makeup of dust grains. The spacecraft is equipped with a protective shield to deflect potentially dangerous particles as it zips past.
Principal investigator Joe Veverka of Cornell University said he looks forward most to finally seeing the impact crater created by Deep Impact, but would be just as satisfied with seeing new surface features. One of the reasons scientists can’t guarantee that Stardust will image the crater is because they’ve had to guess which side of the comet the craft will see as it approaches.
Stardust’s antenna won’t be pointed at Earth during the mission so the public will not be able to see the encounter in real time.
After passing Tempel 1, Stardust will turn toward Earth and start relaying data – a process that will take 12 hours to complete.
Unfortunately, Stardust won’t have enough fuel to flirt with another comet after this.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
