Johnson State University: Why did we choose Mid Atlantic Border Collie Rescue?

Why did we choose Mid Atlantic Border Collie Rescue?

We choose this site because after hearing stories about Sarah and experiences had by Break Away staff it sounded like an amazing, motivating and engaging organization that could offer a truly incredible alternative break experience. Animal Advocacy was the social issue chosen because of the lack of awareness but dire need for it. Mid Atlantic Border Collie Rescue seemed like a great fit for this social issue because of the passion behind it and people involved with it. Dogs seemed to be a good animal to focus on because just about everyone can recall a special pup or make a personal connection with this species.

Group Excitements/Hopes:

Participant 1: I hope to gain a better understanding of the animal advocacy issue and Border Collie breed. I feel like it is an important issue that I don’t quite know how to explain its importance to others. I am excited for lambs, group bonding, playing with dogs, exploring the farm, leaning more about this issue and breed of dog.

Participant 2: My biggest passion in life is helping animals; especially dogs. I am so excited to get to play with the dogs and whatever other animals are there at the farm. I also really hope that we get to help birth lambs. I cannot wait to meet Sarah and all of the dogs and love them.

Participant 3: I am excited for helping out on the farm, taking care of dogs for a week and getting a small taste of Maryland.

Participant 4: I am excited for learning more about how to properly take care of dogs, helping out outside my normal grounds, going somewhere to meet new people, and to try new things like helping to birth lambs.

Participant 5: I am excited to learn more about an play with the border collie! I am excited to learn more about and play with Border Collies. I am excited to learn more about the program you run (MABCR). I am excited to see lambs, I am also very excited to experience life on a big farm and go to Maryland.

Participant 6: I am excited for lambing, walking Border Collies, living on a farm, visiting Maryland, exploring the area, making a difference and helping out, and learning new skills.

Participant 7: I am excited to work with the dogs …I love dogs! I am excited to learn more about how we can help with animal advocacy and programs that focus on it.

Participant 8: I hope to learn more about animal advocacy and the animal rights movement in general. I am excited to possibly birth and take care of baby lambs (SO COOL!) I am excited to meet the beautiful Border Collies. I hope and want to receive information from Sarah and other community members we meet on how to take care of this issue and bring it back home.

Participant 9: I am excited for being able to enjoy a new experience somewhere I’ve never been before. Also I am excited to be able to help out with the dogs and help a good cause like Mid Atlantic Border Collie Rescue. Another thing I am excited for os learning new things and challenging myself to do things that I have never done before.

Participant 10: I am excited to make a difference, help something wild that has become helpless in current environments, entertain and be entertained by the dogs, and build a relationship with like minded individuals.

Break Away: Johnson State College Badger Alternative Breaks

Editor's note: Many of you have asked for information regarding our Break Program, so we have asked our groups to write up information on their programs, and why they chose MABCR. That post will follow tomorrow. Break weeks begin tomorrow. If you are interested in joining us for work days or social time, please contact me privately at SLR@mabcr.org.

History:

Johnson State College Badger Alternative Break formally known as Break Away was founded in 1991 shortly after the national Break Away program was founded. In the last 23 years our program has sent out over one hundred alternative break experiences across the nation and globe. We have focused on a variety of social issues including urban poverty, clean water access, animal advocacy, rural poverty, environmental sustainability and more. Our program was one of the founding schools of national Break Away.

Badger Alt Breaks (B-AB) is run out of the Johnson State College SERVE Office which is the home of community service opportunities on our campus.  From the SERVE Office we offer many programs including three mentoring programs, one local service opportunities, blood drives, drop and swaps, and various other service programs.

Funding:

B-AB is completely self-funded and our participants work very hard to fundraise every penny of their trip budgets. Budgets generally run at $5,000 for domestic trips and $10,000 for international ones. The only out of pocket cost (hopefully) is a $50 deposit that participants are required to make at the beginning of the year.

Throughout the year B-AB runs program wide fundraisers such as letter writing campaign, Rent-a-Breaker, Badger Alt Break Swag and chocolate bar sales. Individually groups run fundraisers such as comedic beauty pageants, date auctions, Valentine’s Day flower sales, and many others. In the past our program receives a small donation from student government but due to budget cuts that is no longer a funding resource.

If at the end of the program year (we end the first week of April, but budgets are due the first week of March) the remaining budget is split up equally between group members and charged to student accounts. This is a rare occurrence, but when it does happen it is generally a small amount and not too overwhelming.

Staffing:

Badger Alternative Breaks is completely student run and operated. The staffing is as follows…

Co-Chairs run the program in the sense that we directly supervise the site leaders and our supervisor oversees co-chairs. We run all meetings, events and other needs of the site leaders. Trips are designed and planned by co-chairs (although in the past and possibly future we are going back to having site leaders plan experiences) Program wide fundraisers are run by co-chairs with assistance from site leaders. Site leaders are responsible for facilitating their group meetings and any individualized events or fundraisers.

Trips:

Each year we send out between three and five different alternative breaks, it only depends on how many site leader applicants we have and how much interest in the program there is. In the past we’ve run one international experience a year, with the other two or three or four being domestic experiences.  Sites and host organizations are chosen by co-chairs with the interests of site leaders being heavily taken into consideration

JSC:

Johnson State is a small, rural libral arts school on the top of a hill in a very small town of Johnson, VT. There are about 1,800 students total with about 600 on campus. Many students choose JSC because it is nestled between three large mountains, and close to many home.

ASB UCF 2011 WrapUp

I thought about calling this post "It Takes a Village" but need to acknowledge that the post is really about ASB, not just MABCR. The title would have been apropos since it certainly does take a village to keep MABCR rolling, and that of course includes ASB.

(For those of you unfamiliar with ASB read this and this and that will help...)

This year's goal was to replace the play yard fencing with 2x4 no-climb mesh fencing. Our previous fencing, installed in 2000 had seen better days and there were places where dogs had no trouble escaping if they chose to. This new fence will go a long way to preventing escape once it is fully completed (we still have some work to do to complete it and will be asking for volunteers assistance). With donations from you, we were able to purchase the fencing needed to get the job done (more to come on that).

We also planned to install posts for fence along the north end of the big play field on the west side of the farm. This fence was originally installed with horses and sheep in mind and over the 13 years of it's life was pretty well abused and needed replacement. Because we had the post hole auger for post holes in the play yard, it made sense to install the posts for the new upper line as well. Included in this plan is a play area for potential adopters to play with their dogs, as well as a space that will be a community garden for part of the year, a play area for dogs during the cold months.

We accomplished this, as well as some other tasks that help us keep our dogs well while they are waiting for their new homes. ASB may be about volunteering, but I see it more as team building. Our crew comes to us often without knowing anyone else they are traveling with, and many end the week as fast friends. The work is hard, but the humor abounds (this year's group was most definitely the 'laughiest') and humor and team work really go a long way to helping hard work seem easier.

Our team this year was amazing. Two of our crew members were alum from 2010 and returned to lead the crew in the adventure. Our crew was challenged to work hard and achieve much and they certainly proved their muster. They all did things they never thought they would do and succeeded at tasks they thought impossible. One crew member who wrote to me after she returned home said "As you may have noticed…I was definitely not the most experienced in any of the work we were helping you with and that was not an excuse for you. You had me doing the same work as everybody else and because of you holding those expectations, I had nothing left to do except meet them. For just meeting me, you believed in me an incredible amount which ultimately made me believe in myself. " If this is all we (as volunteers) achieved during this week, it is a great success in my mind.

As in previous years, this year's trip included visits to the Sultana, The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, a dinner outing to the Fish Whistle, and dinner at volunteers Barbara and Peter's house.

A very special thank you goes out to my cohort Laura Cook who was with us for the entire week. Her support and partnership made the week a joy.

Thank you to Nikki and Anil for having such faith in our program that they returned for a second year.

Thanks to Kris Guttag who organised (and cooked most) all of our meals, Denise Sayer for her grocery donations, and Suzy Goulden for cooking and handing meals on Thursday and Friday. Thanks to Laird Cummings and Ann Byrne who both cooked as well.

Thanks to Barbara Ellis and Peter Evans for hosting dinner and for Barbara for her work efforts during the week.

Thanks to Dr David Hinman (one of our facility vets) for being here most of the week, and to Dr Steve Prier One of our facility vets) for pitching in on Wednesday.

Thanks to Rachelle Daigneault, Dee Merwin, and Laird Cummings for their participation and assistance with the work as well.

I have gathered all of the photos and will be putting together a slide show as I do each year. In the meantime, MABCR Adopter and Volunteer Chris Rodgers visited during ASB and filmed our crew during our toughest day this Spring Break. The crews pushed hard and exceeded expectations. I hope Chris' program gives you a taste of what ASB is about...for us and for the crew.

Alternative Spring Break at MACBR from J. Christopher Rodgers on Vimeo.

Didn't I say it takes a village??

Thank you to everyone for your support. Without everyone's help and support this program would not be what it is. MABCR would not be the successful organisation that is it and we could not do the work we do with you all and each part you play, no matter the size.

Alternative Spring Break at Victory Farm

by Suzie Goulden

Alternative Spring Break is a program for college students who want to give back to society during their week off from classes each March.  The University of Central Florida participates in this program, giving teams of students the opportunity to engage in community service and learn about a social issue such as homelessness, the environment, and animal rescue.  Interested students submit applications to be accepted into the program and they pay their expenses to reach their destination.

Mid-Atlantic Border Collie Rescue is one of the popular options offered through UCF’s Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program, with about eight to ten students and an adult advisor participating annually since 2008. I first learned about MABCR’s participation with ASB a few weeks after we adopted Boo (now named Bailey) in February 2009.  We were adjusting to our new life with Bailey, so I wasn’t able to participate in 2009.  As soon as the 2010 dates were announced, I marked my calendar and told my supervisor at work that I would need to take some time off work in early March.  As I learned more about the ASB program at MABCR, it seemed that helping in the kitchen would be the best use of my skills and abilities.  I volunteered to provide lunches for everyone on Thursday and Friday.  Since I enjoy cooking, it was fun planning the menus and preparing the food. Keeping in mind that some of the students and MABCR volunteers are vegetarian, and all would be hungry after working hard physically, I decided to make a chicken, spinach, pasta dish with a side salad on Thursday, and warm sandwiches and chips on Friday.  I also made enough cookies for both lunches, or so I thought.  At the farm, I learned that college students really love cookies and they were all eaten on the first day.

I drove out to Victory Farm on Thursday, arriving shortly before lunch.  Two of the students were assigned to help me in the kitchen and the others were working in groups outside.  Some were building dog pens and others were doing work in the barn. 

The students assigned to the kitchen on Thursday were very helpful.  It was nice to have a chance to talk with them and learn about ASB from their point of view.  I met the rest of the students when they came inside for lunch.  Just like the two students assigned to help me in the kitchen, the others seemed like really great kids.  They all seemed very interested in doing something to help others, and they were happy to give up a “beach week” spring break in favor of helping MABCR.  The students took a short lunch break and then they were back to work.  Since lunch cleanup went quickly, I was able to join the group and help outside for a couple hours.  For me, the highlight of the day was definitely seeing newborn lambs.  I think there were about six or seven lambs born within just a few days.

ASB isn’t all about the work.  Sarah and the other volunteers plan evening events to give the students an opportunity to learn about something interesting.  When I was there on Thursday night, volunteer Barbara Ellis and her husband Peter hosted a delicious dinner at their home.  They invited some neighbors and friends to provide an interesting mix of dinner guests with whom the students could interact.  The highlight of the evening was definitely the tour of Barbara and Peter’s home.  Their green home includes a solar heating system and they are very conscientious recyclers.  It was also fun to meet their beautiful dogs, cats, and singing birds! 

The evening provided ample opportunity for everyone to talk and get to know each other better.  I learned that the students and their advisor drove in a large van from Central Florida to Chestertown, Maryland, with only a few short restroom breaks.  The trip took about fifteen hours! I also learned that the students had diverse majors and ranged from freshman to seniors, with most students participating in their first ASB experience that year.

My time on Friday was spent in the kitchen, with two different students assigned to kitchen duty, and outside helping to spread the gravel that is now covering the driveway and parking lot at the farm.  It was definitely a team effort to spread so much gravel.  And it sure does look good!

When I signed up to help with ASB, I was happy to be able to support MABCR by providing lunches for the students.  It turned out that I really got a lot out of the experience, too!  It was nice to be part of the group and help make improvements at the farm, improvements that will ultimately help the dogs.  And of course it was nice to spend some time where my Boo spent a few months of his life.