Big green for the Great Red!

SO! The final count is in... Three orangutans have been adopted an many Rambuntan trees planted. We earned a total of 506.00!
Fio, and Kesi were adopted by Emma Wilson School and with the money they had left over they were able to help plant some much needed, much loved trees on the island where the orangutans live. Marigold adopted Dodo, one of the newest members to the island.
Little Chico Creek was able to raise 80.00 and purchased some trees for the orangutans. We can not begin to express our extreme graditute to the other schools that jumped in and participated. We are so happy and proud to be a part of the Chico Unified School District! Keep watching Orangutan Island... go to www.redapes.org check in with us any time you have questions. WE LOVE ORANGUTANS!

Orangutan Celebration!

Oh! Great Red ape! How Do I LOVE THEE.... let me count the ways...
We had SUCH a great time at the Sacramento Zoo!
Oh my goodness! It just goes without saying that the weather was beautiful and the people were generous, but really the orangutans were just wonderful!
We raised 150.00 at the Zoo to donate to www.redapes.org and we are still collecting money at our school and some others here in town for the cause. By Friday (November 21st) I think we will be 100% done with our fund raising and ready to report our amounts!
I am so excited and happy with all of the kids efforts.
I have the best group of kids EVER!
Plus the Sacramento Zoo is AMAZING for letting us have an Orangutan celebration there! They took an idea an ran with it, giving us ample help and support with their Zoo Teen program, craft ideas, tables, bulletin boards, wonderful buttons, raffle prizes, and just some darn nice people.
Lets just all remember what a great place the Sacramento Zoo is! :)
I LOVE THE ZOO!

Pictures of our visit to see Dr. Jane

On November 1st of 2008, I had the honor to drive four giggling excited girls to meet their idol. It is not often that I get to listen to a group of kids these days and know that what they are saying is important, life changing, and memorable. As I peered through the buckets of rain that Mother Nature threw at our van, I thought back to when I was a little girl and in love with Dr. Jane Goodall. Here I was taking my ten year old to see her.
There is no limit to what a good person can inspire. Dr Jane has inspired these girls to be more responsible with their environment, with the animals they love, with the people they come in contact with on a daily basis and with their own soul. These were the things I was hearing, as I tried to both drive and listen. Of course I plucked the meaning of the rambling words of four ten year olds who said things in broken sentences, and interjected thoughts of what we might be eating for lunch in the middle of a profound statement about global warming… but the true heart of the day bounced around inside the van. All I had to do was take one look in the rear view mirror at my daughter or the other girls who had perma-grin, to know that in just three or four hours they would be standing next to someone they looked up to, read about, studied, saw on T.V, did reports about in class, and now…now were about to share a moment in time with.
It was too much for me. I was glad when we arrived that the whole day was moist and my eyes were not alone.
I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to not only see Dr. Jane speak, but to see my daughter and the girls in my Roots and Shoots club see Dr. Jane speak. To watch them, watching her was one of the best days of my life.

JANE GOODALL! and a little singing...

Well it appears I have been slacking on this whole weekly entry thing! I must say it has something to do with the fact that on November first I had the opportunity to take four of the Roots and Shoots kids down to San Fransisco to see Jane Goodall! It was very exciting, and very fun, and a very hard thing to choose only four kids out of such a large group!
Sigh.
I ended up picking names from the oldest in the group...which means the fifth graders...
It was at the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. The weather did not seem to care that Dr. Jane Goodall was kind enough to come and see us, and the event was outside, so we all were a little damp. It was well worth it. Dr Goodall spoke for about 25 minutes about her experiences with the chimps and why she started the Roots and Shoots organization. She encouraged the kids to wake up each day and think, "what can I do today to make a difference?" If they do that, there is no way they can feel bad about themselves.
She is truly an inspiration, and yet looks out at the faces of our children and sees hope.
I am so proud to say our kids were there and that Marigold Roots and Shoots was represented. We showed Dr. Jane a poster that had all of our projects we have accomplished over the last two school years... we are a busy group!
Speaking of that! We got our scripts and have begun to rehearse for our Readers Theater! We will be performing for the school and for a nursing home here in Chico, to spread some cheer.... ( I hope. Right now our singing is pretty chaotic!)
We will be practicing off and on until our performance. I will keep everyone updated and let you know exactly when that will be.
In other exciting news, we are encouraging every school in the district to adopt an ORANGUTAN! yippie! It is National Orangutan Week coming up here very soon November 10th- 16th!
We are definitely able to do something with the Sacramento Zoo on the 15th and 16th so look for more details on that soon! :)
Send in your loose change and lets adopt an orangutan!
Thanks everyone
NinjaMom out