Now that we are fos­ter­ing a dog I meet local fam­i­lies at adop­tion day each week­end and some have shared sto­ries of recently los­ing a pet. I tear up when I hear them. Our won­der­ful vet is involved in a Pet Remembrance Candle Lighting Ceremony in Leesburg next week, and I offered to help get the word out. The event will be held at St. James’ Episcopal Church (14 Cornwall Street NW Leesburg 20176) at 6:00 P.M. on Friday March 5th. The dead­line to include your pet’s photo in the slideshow has passed, but you and your fam­ily can still attend to remem­ber a pet together and put a pic­ture of your pet on the Memory Board. Here are some details straight from the flier:

This year mar­ket he 5th International Pet Remembrance Candle Lighting Ceremony. Pet lovers in Loudoun County first par­tic­i­pated in this cer­e­mony in 2009. Please join us once again to help con­tinue the tra­di­tion in hon­or­ing all beloved pets who have passed on, are lost, or have been sep­a­rated from their family.

Join us in the Fellowship Hall of St. James’ Episcopal Church at 6:00pm for light refresh­ments, to hear read­ings and music, and to enjoy inspi­ra­tional thoughts from our spe­cial guest, the Reverend Bonnie J. Berger. Rev. Berger is an inter­faith min­is­ter, spir­i­tual life coach, and hos­pi­tal chap­lain who is excited to help build this tra­di­tion in cel­e­brat­ing the human-animal bond! The can­dle light­ing cer­e­mony will occur at 7:00 pm. All human mem­bers of your fam­ily are invited to attend but please leave your four-legged fam­ily mem­bers at home!
Feel free to bring a pic­ture of your pet along to be included on the Memory Board.

If you can­not attend our cer­e­mony, please feel free to e-mail us your pet’s name and pic­ture so he or she can still be included in the slide show. We also encour­age you to join us at home by light­ing a can­dle for one hour at 7:00 pm. We hope you will find com­fort know­ing that other pet lovers world­wide will also be light­ing a can­dle on the same date, in mem­ory of their lost pets!

If you have ques­tions you can reach Dr. Krisi Erwin of the Leesburg Veterinary hos­pi­tal at this email address.

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Info about the upcom­ing Ashburn MOMS Clubs’ preschool forum is quickly spread­ing through var­i­ous moms groups through­out the county. The announce­ment follows.

The MOMS Clubs® of the Ashburn Area are pleased to present:

Ashburn Preschool Forum

Saturday, January 23, 2010
9:00am – 12:00pm
The Mills Recreation Center
43895 Grottoes Drive in Ashburn Village

Are you con­sid­er­ing preschool for your child?

Come get the par­ents’ per­spec­tive on our local schools!
Information about the preschools in our area will be avail­able and moms with chil­dren in the var­i­ous schools will be speak­ing about their per­sonal expe­ri­ence with the teach­ers and schools.
Open to ALL Ashburn Area parents!

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact MOMSClub@tjdjmail. com

**** We’re cur­rently look­ing for par­ents of chil­dren in the preschools to speak at the forum. This is the 4th year we’ve held the forum and the peo­ple attend­ing always seem very grate­ful to have some “inside knowl­edge” about the schools.
Here are the schools we hope to include at the forum, so if you’d like to vol­un­teer to speak for about 5 min­utes about your expe­ri­ence with one of these schools please email momsclub@tjdjmail. com. We also hope to have some of the spe­cial needs pro­grams rep­re­sented so if you are will­ing to share your expe­ri­ence with those we’d love to have you. Your par­tic­i­pa­tion would be very much appreciated!

A Child’s Place Preschool
Arcola Christian Preschool
Ashburn Children’s Center
Ashburn Village Country Day School
Audubon Nature Preschool
Bean Tree Learning
The Boyd School
Briar Woods Early Learning Lab (Preschool at the Woods)
Broad Run Early Learning Lab
Busy Bees (Kari Vance)
Celebration
Chesterbrook Academy
Christian Fellowship School
Classroom of Discovery
Claude Moore Preschool (for­merly Sterling Annex)
Discovery Oaks Academy
Dulles South Preschool
Fit 2 Learn
Goddard School (Belmont Greene)
Goddard School (Ashburn)
Golden Pond
Growing Minds (Judi Ratcliffe)
Heaven Sent Christian Preschool
Hope Christian Preschool
Kids Under Construction
KinderCare Learning Center
KinderWorks in Brambleton (for­merly Winwood)
Little Learners Academy
Little Sprouts Preschool
Loudoun Country Day School
Minnieland
Montessori Academy at Belmont Greene
Montessori Children’s House of Loudoun
My Favorite Place Preschool
Open Arms Christian Child Development Center
School of Spanish (Magnolia Inmon)
Sha’are Shalom Rosie Uran Jewish Education Center
South Riding Children’s Center
St. David’s Episcopal Preschool
Sterling Annex Preschool
Stone Bridge Early Learning Lab
Virginia Academy/Ark Preschool
Willow Montessori
Winnie the Pooh
Winwood Children’s Center

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‘Tis the sea­son for giv­ing, but it can often be hard to know how to help or where to start. Here are a few ideas on how to spread the love beyond your own family.

Donate to a local nonprofit

donate

If your mail­box looks any­thing like mine this week you know that there are many com­mu­nity based, not for profit orga­ni­za­tions around who need our finan­cial sup­port to con­tinue their impor­tant work. I am sup­port­ing the Loudoun Literacy Council this year and invite you to join me. The Loudoun Literacy Council’s ded­i­cated team of vol­un­teers and staff are com­mit­ted to improv­ing English lit­er­acy skills of at-risk adults, chil­dren and fam­i­lies in Loudoun County through ESL course offer­ings, story times in local home­less shel­ters, book dona­tions, com­mu­nity events, indi­vid­ual tutor­ing, and work­ing with the county Head Start pro­gram. Each of these offer­ings affects indi­vid­u­als, and their sto­ries drive me to help the Loudoun Literacy Council in any way I can. Plus, gifts in December 2009 will be dou­bled up to $10,000 by an anony­mous donor and I like the idea of dou­bling my gift. :)

Consider giv­ing “alter­na­tive gifts” to the ide­al­ists on your list this year

You and your loved ones can cre­ate alter­na­tive gift reg­istries with help from the folks at a New American Dream. Imagine the impact you can have on a young child by help­ing them develop an other-centered alter­na­tive hol­i­day gift list.

You can shop at one of the local Alternative Gift Fairs which allow you to donate to local non­profit orga­ni­za­tions on behalf of some­one on your shop­ping list. Much bet­ter than a lump of coal. :)

If you are glob­ally inclined, there is always Heifer International which promises to help you “choose a mean­ing­ful gift to give a loved one and help chil­dren and fam­i­lies around the world receive train­ing and ani­mal gifts that help them become self-reliant.”

Short on cash? There are still many ways you can help our community!

Donate Blood

redcross

The Red Cross is ALWAYS look­ing for blood donors. This is not a kid-friendly task (you should have seen the looks they gave me when I tried to sneak the kids onto the blood-mobile a few years back!), but could be a nice escape on the week­end if you are not both­ered by nee­dles and blood. If you are not eli­gi­ble, maybe you can babysit for a friend while s/he donates.

Help the Ashburn Volunteer Fire & Rescue Department

avfrdpatch

By par­tic­i­pat­ing in a short fire safety sur­vey between now and December 21, 2009, you can help the Ashburn Volunteer Fire & Rescue Department win a $10,000 grant. I just did this and promise to revisit this post if I start get­ting oodles of junk mail. Of course, by then it may be too late.…

Provide a fos­ter home for a home­less animal

fosterdog

There are many ani­mal res­cue orga­ni­za­tions here in Northern Virginia that need help from ded­i­cated, expe­ri­enced ani­mal lovers who are will­ing to train, social­ize and love pets seek­ing new for­ever homes. Here are some of your options:

I have not per­son­ally fos­tered for any of these orga­ni­za­tions. I rec­om­mend con­tact­ing an agency to see if it feels like a fit, and seri­ously con­sid­er­ing whether fos­ter­ing is right for your fam­ily before you start. It is a big commitment!

Volunteer to post fliers for a local nonprofit

This is a fun project to involve the kids in as you can traipse through your local com­mu­nity cen­ter, post office, gym, and library together and talk about the folks you are help­ing as you go. But, watch out! You may get so attached to their mis­sion you end up vol­un­teer­ing in other capacities…

Conduct your own com­mu­nity clean up

cleanup

Look for it and you will find trash, dog feces, cig­a­rette butts and other messes in our shared spaces. Teach your kids a les­son and work together to help clean a lit­tle piece of it up. Don’t for­get to wear gloves and wash your hands! If you need a lit­tle lit­er­a­ture to con­nect the dots for younger kids, check out the book All the Way to the Ocean by Joel Harper.

Leverage your gro­cery bill

If your fre­quent shop­per club card at your store of choice is not already con­nected to a scrip pro­gram sup­port­ing your local schools or favorite non­profit con­sider sup­port­ing the Georgetown Child Life pro­gram through the Giant Bonus Bucks pro­gram. The thought of spend­ing the hol­i­days away from home in a hos­pi­tal is dif­fi­cult for many of us to imag­ine, but for some it is a con­stant real­ity. Having a few toys around sounds like a good thing.

And if all else fails, just count birds

Seriously! You can join the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy at their 13th annual Christmas Bird Count on December 27, 2009.

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