Archives for December 2015

On October 23 and 24^th the Virginia Museum of Natural History held their annual Reptile Day Exhibit. This event helps teach kids about reptiles including various types of snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, and even an alligator. Cold Earth Encounters staff and animals were on hand during this two day special. On Friday October 23^rd the museum was open to local schools to allow students the chance to see and hold animals. Kids were broken up into small groups and taken into different portions of the exhibit. The Humanitarian Support Foundation VA office helped on October 23 during the classroom visits of several local schools. Humanitarian Support Foundation employees helped to lead kids through the exhibit and even got to hold a few animals. The event continues on October 24, 2015 opening to the public attracting thousands of visitors to the museum including out of state enthusiasts that wanted to check out the cool animals on hand. The Humanitarian Support Foundation looks forward to helping with future events through the Virginia Museum of Natural History.

Each year Grace Networks hosts an annual pumpkin patch in city of Martinsville. There are a variety of pumpkins and gourds available to purchase by the community but more importantly with each purchase Grace Network receives a portion of the purchase cost to help local families in need. Grace Network supports the community in a couple of different ways. One of the major things they do is assist people with rent and utilities bills. This could be in the form of a higher than normal power bill to an unexpected medical cost that prevented someone from being able to pay their rent. Last year over $200,000 went to help people in the Martinsville and Henry County community in the rental and utility assistance program alone. They also support people in our area by providing food as needed from their food pantry. This food pantry is very different than most as they actually allow people in need to come into the pantry and select items they know will be used. This helps to prevent waist and empowers people for the future. In 2015 over $97,000 of food was given to those most in need in our community. The pumpkin patch sales help to support these vital program and the Martinsville VA office has worked with Grace Network in the past on this event and again helped to sale pumpkins at the pumpkin patch on October 22 and 30. The Humanitarian Support Foundation VA offices looks forward to continue to help Grace Network in the near future.