Two days and counting until BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS.
In Thursday’s Midland Reporter-Telegram, and online at MyWestTexas.com, you can read the story of Ashley Masters, a 27-year-old woman who is working toward degrees in chemistry and biology at Midland College so she can one day fulfill her dream: to become a research scientist. Ashley grew up in a “normal” household and was well cared for by her parents. She was a good student at Midland High. But when her husband began drinking and beating her, she knew it was time to get out. For her safety, and for the safety of her young daughter Keteri, Ashley was helped by Safe Place and ultimately moved in at Midland Fair Havens. Ashley and Keteri lived at the facility for two years while the two got back on their feet and Ashley started her education at Midland College.
Today, with an associates degree in hand and a job at Midland College, Ashley proves just how valuable Midland Fair Havens can be for the women who call on this faith-based transitional housing service when they realize they need a new beginning. Fair Havens has even worked for 5-year-old Keteri: already reading, Ashley’s daughter will enter a Midland school for the gifted and talented later this month.
Ashley’s story is why your contribution to BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS is so very important. Financial gifts help ensure that success stories like Ashley’s continue to occur.
In the past five years, gifts from hundreds of generous people have helped bring almost $30,000 to help the women and children who rely on Fair Havens
Our 5th annual BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS fundraiser is scheduled for this Friday and Saturday, Aug. 7-8, to be held this year at the Rock the Desert Christian music festival.
In year's past, generous donations have been made not just from Midlanders and West Texans, but substantial gifts have been made by kind people from Royse City to Kansas City, from Houston to Austin, from Dallas to Denver.
This year’s pre-event appeal, which you are reading, is even more important than it has been in years past as we strive to raise $20,000. With BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS moving to Rock the Desert, a ticketed event, the good people who have visited us before at the H-E-B parking lot (thank you, H-E-B!) may not have the same opportunity to visit us this year. So much generosity was displayed last year during the actual day of our BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS event. Thousands and thousands of Midlanders drove by and honked and waved. This year, we were offered a tremendous opportunity to locate at Rock the Desert where potentially 50,000 concert goers could walk by our tent and hear the message of help and hope that Midland Fair Havens provides.
If you can help this year, either through a monetary gift or by offering to be a sponsor and donating an item that we can provide to those who help BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS please drop me a note today, or just visit the Fair Havens web site, learn about what we do and who we are, and click on the "Donate Now" button at the bottom of the page if you feel inspired and called to do so.
We will be accepting your monetary gifts today through the conclusion of the Aug. 7-8 Christian music festival. And yes, I will again be atop a 30-foot scissor lift (thanks to Shorty's Rentals). OK, maybe I’ll only go up 20 feet, but I’ll be way up for this wonderful charitable organization.
If you can’t make it out to Rock The Desert for the BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS event, you can follow me any number of ways:
* via this blog
* thru our Twitter feeds on MyWestTexas.com;
* on my Facebook page
* or, by watching our live web cam on MyWestTexas.com during the event. Hey how much fun can that be? Watching me on a web cam from 10 a.m.-midnight Friday and 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturday??
No gift is too small and all gifts regardless of the size help people like Ashley and Keteri get a hand up and foothold on a life that maybe hasn't quite gone in the direction they had hoped. But your gift can help them turn around that situation. Help a mom go to college. Help her kids with a healthy, faith-filled place to call home until a family can take that step and make that new life.
All proceeds raised during BLOGGING FOR FAIR HAVENS go directly to helping these women and their children.
Drop us your pledge today, or come by our tent at Rock the Desert.
May God bless you all.
Jimmy Patterson
MyWestTexas.com
Midland Fair Havens
You GO, Jimmy! You can count on support from Kansas City again this year. I hope your new venue proves fruitful...I can't imagine a better audience than a bunch of Christian music fans. :-)
Posted by: Gwynne | Wednesday, August 05, 2009 at 12:36 PM