Holiday Giving
Posted on 29. Oct, 2012 by BDVP in Featured, News, Stories
Your generous holiday donation matters to families surviving domestic violence this season. We anticipate being the only holiday support for at least 100 families living in our shelter or receiving our services. Our three giving options make it easy for individuals and groups to give–whether you have a little or a lot to give. We appreciate your delivery of unwrapped gifts before December 15.
Adopt-a-family
Give the gift of holiday joy to an entire family! We’ll pass along a list with the family’s needs and wishes–including clothing sizes, favorite colors, and age-appropriate toy suggestions. Average time it takes: 1 hour. Average cost: $100 – 300 per family.
Stock the Santa Shop
Help us stock our Holiday Gift Shop with presents for moms and nonviolent toys for children of all ages: robes, pajamas, slippers, board games, stuffed animals, and self-care items. Average time it takes: 30 minutes. Average cost: $15 per gift.
Give empowerment
Your donation of gift cards will empower survivors of domestic violence to create special holiday memories for their children. Pick up gift cards from local retailers, gas stations, and grocery stores and mail them to us. Average time it takes: just a few minutes. Average cost: $25 per gift card.
Click here to download the Holiday Giving flyer. Contact Olivia for more information and delivery directions: 800-544-2022 or by email. Gift cards may be mailed to BDVP; P.O. Box 55190; Lexington, 40516.
LUNAFEST 2012
Posted on 19. Sep, 2012 by BDVP in Events, Featured, News
Lunafest is an annual film festival by, for and about women. This season’s program of nine selected films will compel discussion, make you laugh, tug at your heartstrings and motivate you to make a difference in your community. (Watch previews of this season’s films.)
Tuesday, October 16
7:00 p.m.
The Kentucky Theatre
214 E. Main Street – Lexington (Get Directions)
General Admission is $15. Nonprofit partners and student rate is $10.
Purchase your tickets today!
This popular event has sold out in previous years. We recommend pre-purchasing your tickets.
(Update 10/16/12) ONLINE TICKETS SALES ARE CLOSED. TICKETS FOR SALE AT THE DOOR. Pre-purchased tickets will be available at the will call window.
For more information, click here to send us an email or call 859-233-0657.
Proceeds benefit Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program and Breast Cancer Research. Lunafest was established by LUNA, the makers of the Whole Nutrition Bar for Women.
Abundance!
Posted on 11. Jun, 2012 by Farmer123 in Farm, News
- Market Stand
Well… That’s really the only way to describe it, honestly! We are currently enjoying the abundance at Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program. We have been busy harvesting, processing, preparing, freezing, fermenting and just loving all of the fresh produce coming from our bountiful gardens! All I can say is it has been a whole lot of fun in the kitchen these days…. You all know how it is… a bunch of powerful women cooking up some good food together. What a time!
In the last week we have made kim chee (client request), garlic scape pesto, and kale chips on top of all of the fresh garden meals that our lovely kitchen coordinator, Christina prepares. We have been drying herbs and flowers and freezing broccoli and cauliflower. We recently had a class on using fresh herbs. Blog and pics to come soon!
Along with all of our in-house abundance we have begun marketing some of our products to the community through an on-line pre-order system. In partnership with two other non-profits, Seedleaf and In-Feed, Watershed Farm of BDVP is doing a weekly distribution of cut flowers, fresh herbs, and select produce! Folks can take a look at what’s available each week and pre-order and pre-pay for their weekly pick-up. Pick-up occurs at our favorite local coffeeshop, Third Street Stuff, located in downtown Lexington. We recently had our third distribution and, not only are we making some sales, we are just flat having a good time!
Produce Basket from BDVP
http://seedleaf.smallfarmcentral.com/store/all
This on-line sales strategy seems to be a good fit for us. We know what to harvest before going to market and though we do bring a bit extra for additional purchases, we are ending up with less waste. Our organizations have a pretty dedicated internet and facebook following so this is a good way for us to keep folks in the loop and draw community support.
I don’t think I could end this post without letting the world (and the blogosphere) know how thankful we are for the opportunity to be doing this work. It’s pretty awesome to spend my work days growing, sharing and preparing organic food, working with bees and herbs, making flower bouquets and all antural body products with a group of strong and amazing women (there are some great fellas and kiddos at BDVP ,too!) I personally feel that it is truly a gift to be a part of this!
Home-made Kimchee
Food for Thought…. and for Sale!
Posted on 21. May, 2012 by Farmer123 in Events, Farm, Featured, News
Hey everyone… I just wanted to let you know that we will be trying our hand at our first market for BDVP and SeedLeaf Farms this Thursday. Folks can pre-order veggies, herbs, plants, seeds, or flowers on-line (site link below) and come Thursday afternoon to pick-up at Third Street Stuff. This will be a weekly event so we hope you all will stay tuned and take advantage of this great opportunity to purchase great local products and support the work of some wonderful non-profit organizations in your community… We should have a little extra of everything in case you just want to check it out on-site…. We are encouraging folks to pre-order if possible, however, just to make things a bit easier for all of us….
http://seedleaf.smallfarmcentral.com/store/bluegrass-domestic-violence-program
Stipend Program
Posted on 08. May, 2012 by Farmer123 in Farm, Stories
At Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program we want to help facilitate opportunities for engagement and empowerment. As part of our relationship with Grow Appalachia we have created a pilot program within our farm programming at BDVP. Over the last several weeks we have incorporated a stipend program into our gardening project. We wanted to see if offering a small stipend to our clients would encourage participation and draw them into garden work. Many victims enter shelter without any source of income so, a little bit of pocket money can make a big difference as they are getting on their feet. We also feel that the stipend opportunity can create avenues for some clients to adjust to shelter life by taking part in BDVP community work.
We typically have a pretty good amount of involvement in farm activities. Our families are usually pretty excited about the produce, the flowers, the honey. They may try to come and help in the garden when they can but, they are surviving and they are trying to figure out their next step. For some, the garden easily provides a healing space. Others however, see it for the hard work that it is and can be a bit wa
ry of jumping right in. We have seen that active participation in the farm and associated activities creates a really positive atmosphere at our facility. We want to develop this and so we decided to look at different ways to encourage participation through an empowerment model. I mean, let’s face it, our clients do not come to shelter to learn how to farm. They come here because they are victims of intimate partner violence. We cannot expect them to be totally gung-ho about pulling weeds and shoveling compost. Honestly, we really aren’t here to have any expectations around their choices. We are simply here to create a safe space and to make resources available for t
That being said, we are seeing some AMAZING participation in our garden and projects associated with the stipend program! It has been so cool to watch these women get involved and really find some ownership in our farm. These ladies have been timely, enthusiastic, and incredibly hard-working so far. In fact, as I write this post, there are three lovely ladies in the garden, weeding and mulching! Part of me is a little sad that I am not out there with them but a much bigger part of me is SO proud that they are rocking this!!!! I see this is as empowerment!hem. We hope that our programming can promote opportunities for healing and growth in their lives, but, it is not our job to assume that it can or that it will.
Participants in the program are asked to work 9 hours per week. We schedule with each client individually at the beginning of the week to work around their schedules and other support groups they are interested in attending. So far we have had three ladies involved with the stipend program and a new client to begin next week.
Gettin’ Crafty!
Posted on 25. Apr, 2012 by Farmer123 in Farm, News
Fresh Herbs from the Healing Garden
Good times at BDVP yesterday! We have been working on integrating our craft program with our farm program and it has been so fun! Yesterday clients and staff made a homemade healing salve with fresh herbs from our garden. The salve was made with the infusion of comfrey, lavender, rosemary, lemon balm and plantain. This herbal ointment is a nourishing moisturizer that is excellent for bumps, bruises, scrapes, dry skin, and insect bites.
To make the salve, we harvested these plants from the garden. Then we chopped up all of the herbs and warmed them in a double boiler with coconut oil and olive oil. This infusion brewed for about an hour. We then strained the oil (twice) and put it back on the double boiler with beeswax. Once everything was melted and stirred, we poured it into jars and allowed it to cool…and Waaa…Laaa! Salve is complete.
While the herbs were brewing we had a great group of women and kiddos making hand-rolled, beeswax candles. Everyone got to keep one for themselves and we will be selling the rest on Sunday of Mayfest this year along with some other crafts and products from our farm. If you are out and about come and visit our booth! We are hoping we can sell some of our home-made goods to help fund our craft groups and projects. We also hope that these projects can offer some small business ideas for our clients to work with as they move forward.
Making Candles
Finished Product!
Making home-made Salve:
Chopped Herbs
Straining the Oil Infusion
Melting the Beeswax
Hattie Mae Golf Scramble 2012
Posted on 06. Apr, 2012 by BDVP in Events, News
It’s time to register for the 6th Annual Hattie Mae Golf Scramble!
This year, Hattie Mae will be on June 4 at Spring Valley Golf Club. Lunch starts at 11:30, and Golf begins at 1:00!
If you’d like to join us, here is an Electronic Registration form. It can be submitted via email to olivia.spradlin@bdvp.org or hard copy to Olivia Spradlin c/o BDVP, PO Box 55190, Lexington, KY 40555. Payment can be made here online.
The Buzz at BDVP
Posted on 05. Apr, 2012 by Farmer123 in Farm
Tree Planting Success!
Posted on 01. Apr, 2012 by Farmer123 in Farm, News
Getting Started
Thanks so much to Kentucky Utilities and all who came and supported the Plant for the Planet tree planting event at BDVP. It was a huge success! With the help of 30 volunteers we were able to plant 24 large ball and burlap trees and 30 smaller trees in less than 5 hours. What a crew!
Big Helpers
On March 24th, 2012 Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program hosted a volunteer tree planting event at our shelter facility. We were joined by many local arborists and community members to begin planting a micro-forest on our campus. The weather was beautiful and a good time was had by all! For some great pics of the event, check out our video slide show .
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Support Staff
Special thanks to Town Branch Tree Experts, Ky. Division of Forestry, Dave Leonard Consulting Arborist, and Glynn Young Nursery for your support of this project!
Tree Planting Tomorrow
Posted on 23. Mar, 2012 by Farmer123 in News
Hey there folks. In case you haven’t heard we will be having a native tree planting at our facility tomorrow, March 24. We will be installing a micro-forest with a number of arborists, plant people and community volunteers. The forecast is calling for a 50% chance of scattered showers however, we will continue with the planting unless we get fully rained out. So… grab your rain gear, work gloves and shovels and come help us out with a really beautiful project at Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program! 
