Good Morning Good News !!!! June 13, 2011

I’m Vincent D. Cat and here to make you happy! You are HEROES! You work hard every day and you deserve to smile every day! Those of you working to save us animals hear so very many very sad things. And there’s lots of very glad things too and that’s what we talk about here! All pawsitive all the time! I want my friends to be happy and smile and know there’s a lot of good - including YOU - in this world!! Be kind and pass it on! Please send me your Good New and Fun Stuff to share, personal or global. Let’s keep it fun and interactive!! After all, if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane! Vincent@RikkisRefuge.org

Special

WE LOVE YOU David and Christine

Edition

Have YOU heard the news?

Miss Pitty Pat is swimming in her new pool -

deep enough so her feet don’t bang on the bottom!

Mickey and Maverick have luscious new quarters!

Rabbits are romping!

Pigeons are playing!

Rabbit Rotunda II is OPEN !!!!!

Come, take a tour of this wonderful new Neighborhood at Rikki’s Refuge!!

Meet some of the happy animals who have moved into their new fancy diggs!! This fabulous facility, the most professional Neighborhood Building at Rikki’s Refuge, has been in the making for a year!!! David and Christine Skinner, contributed this wonderful new home to the animals of Rikki’s Refuge. They contributed thousands of hours of love and labor to make it happen. And thousands and thousands of hard earned dollars to buy all the materials.

A great big huge thank you and a million miles of Purrrs to all the volunteers who worked to make this dram come true over the last year. Some of you worked hours and hours, week after week, in the cold and in the heat. Others contributed a few hours. Without each of you - we would not be were we are today!!

THANK YOU !!!

AND A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO DAVID

FOR A ZILLION HOURS OF LOVE AND LABOR!!!!!

I’ve got a big important meeting with a Litter Company today - I’m doing the demonstrations - so I’ve only got a few minutes.

I’m in trouble, I’ve been letting all the critters go see the doc, and lots of them needed help this month, I’ve bought them all medicine, and I’ve let them use the air conditioning in the 9^th Life Center and Hospital on some of these really hot days, I’ve made sure everybody had their get rid of flea and tick medicine, I’ve gotten gas and diesel for all the grass cutting so my friends don’t get lost in the long grass, I let my friends be warm and used the propane this spring and I haven’t paid that last bill, I’ve run up bills buying cracked corn for the chickens and pigeon food and gravel and pig food, lots of pig food. It’s been really bad cuz most of our produce supply has dried up. Some stores stopped giving it to us. Others won’t let us pick up anymore cuz our volunteers couldn’t meet their specific schedules. Dennis has been bringing the food from the school cafeterias and we’ve seen our last of that for a few months.

I need to pay all these bills and I need tarps, not heavy ones, I need them for shade, I need 10 x 12 or bigger, I need bleach, lots of bleach, lots and lots in the summer, gotta scrub all the water bowls everyday and clean in bleach to keep the algae from growing - you wondered why my paws are white didn’t you? I need scrub brushes, laundry detergent and always, lots and lots of paper towels.

The pile of bills on my desk is so high. I’ve got people calling me and saying they’ll do bad things to me if I don’t pay my bills. But I’m out of that green stuff. I stole mom’s ATM card and got all her green paper too. And still it’s not enough. This is the first month in 2011 that it’s been this bad. I’m afraid I’m in serious trouble if I don’t get some help with fundraisng.

Would you please help me? How about a yard sale, a bake sale, do a table-ing event in a shopping center, help us at festivals. If every body on the planet just gave me a quarter, I could do it all.

Please help me. If you have a spare $ or two or even a penny, it can go towards helping the animals. Please help me now!

Help me keep the wonderful refuge running!

http://www.rikkisrefuge.org/donate.php

YARD SALES

Kathy and Kim are helping with yard sales. There’s a flea market set up near Lake of the Woods on Route 3. If you’re coming from Fredericksburg, it’s on the left after the glass office building and the Ace Hardware and before Lake of the Woods light. Saturdays 8 am - 3 pm. Kathy and Kim set up this Saturday and made a few hundred bucks for Rikki’s Refuge with things they had.

If they had more things they could make more money for Rikki’s. They’ll sell your things for Rikki’s. What do you have that you no longer use or need or want? Things need to be in reasonably good shape and need to be clean and in working order. Rikki’s Refuge has a reputation to uphold after all you know!!!!

Contact Kathy KDoucette@wri.org or Kim kidoujs@gmail.com or by phone 703-350-3957 if you have items they can sell to benefit Rikki’s Refuge. Their home is off Rt 3 not far from the new shopping center with Giant, Petco and Home Depot. They have a great garage for storing things. Unfortunately it’s enough off the beaten path and without adequate parking to make it a good site to sell from.

Some things they’d like to get:

potted plants

home accent pieces

furniture that is easily carried

chairs would be good, small tables or plant stands

decorative mirrors

anything you can put on the wall

kitchen items

camping items

anything for outdoor entertaining and living

Help us collect nice, clean usable items that will be hot sellers. Kathy and Kim have one suv to transport in. Could use help getting items to and from the flea market site. Also could use help on Saturdays at the sale.

Saturday the 18^th, this coming Saturday they’ll be at the sale

Saturday the 25^th, they’ll be at the sale. And so will I !!! Guest appearance by World Famous Spokes Cat Vincent D. Cat, handing out his purrs and loves from 10-12.

Please help us with this and other ideas you have for raising money to pay our bills and keep our animals happy and healthy. Pick one of these ideas or come up with your own. We’ll share your success story here!!! Yard sales, bake sales, tabling at events and at shopping centers, plant sales, these are ideas that can be done anywhere in the world and the proceeds sent to help the animals of Rikki’s.

Love,

Vincent

Help me keep the wonderful refuge running!

http://www.rikkisrefuge.org/donate.php

PS I’m using Blogger to write this to you. I had gotten pretty good at figuring out how to format things. It wasn’t WYSIWYG but they did give me a preview option and pretty much what I wrote and formatted in Microsoft word was coming thru ---- well it looks like they new and improved blogger and not my formatting is all messed up and not looking anything like in my word document POOOO and they took away preview .... Booooooo.

So my question to you is - do you use a blog? Which one do you like? Which is the easiest for WYSIWYG formatting? Easiest to move from word to blog?? Any suggestions for this poor technologically challenged kitty???

PPS You tell me what you want! Email me at Vincent@RikkisRefuge.org with instructions to change your subscription: additions, deletions or modifications! Subscriptions: Vincent’s VIPs - up to the second alerts about issues at Rikki’s Refuge for those who care and want to be intimately involved. Scheduled as needed. Good Morning Good News - a little something to get you going in the mornings, for those of you who want to keep smiling with us! Scheduled daily. Hairballs - so you know what’s coming up at Rikki’s! Scheduled weekly.

Rikki's Refuge, supported solely by private donations, houses over 1200 animals of 22 species. On line at http://bit.ly/Give-a-gift-to-Rikkis Checks, money orders, cash, items at Rikki's Refuge, PO Box 1357, Orange VA 22960

Rikki's Refuge is owned and operated by Life Unlimited of Virginia, Inc., an IRS 501(c)(3) not-for-profit Virginia Corporation, tax-id 54-1911042. Combined Federal Campaigns #77674, Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign #3163, PetsMart Charities #1377. A financial statement is available upon written request from the State Office of Consumer Affairs.

Learn more www.RikkisRefuge.org and help spread the good word, tell everyone you know about Rikki’s Refuge