The Love of Life Festival May 7, 2022 is ensured to be a beautiful day!
THREE WEEKS TILL KLT LOL FESTIVAL!
Because this is our very first fundraising festival we are learning as we go. It’s coming together nicely but we're still looking for vendors, food trucks, and sponsors. It’s so amazingly helpful to have so many people who are supporting us in so many ways, from finding a venue, getting us in touch with somebody to take care of the mowing, finding prospective sponsors, and volunteers willing to work at the festival itself. Thank you Dr. Pyles, of Pain Treatment Centers, for donating your beautiful property for the event.
A group of us went out to the festival venue this weekend to pick up yard debris before the first mow. (Pictured, left to right: Ryan Thurgaland, Gage, Connor, Doyle, and Elizabeth Graf, Jodell Thurgaland, Jill Overcash, Cadi Thurgaland, and Steve McRoberts).
We have some great items for auction and raffle!
One of our vendors, The Little Things, has donated a beautiful duffel bag and gift basket for auction.
"All the items are look-alikes back to the highest quality real cowhide leather. The medium Never full, Every day purse is top mirror image - 'Mirror image means look alike to the authentic thing' .You definitely cannot tell the difference - the purse alone is over a $300 value! Then of course you need a Wallet to go with your new purse. Included in the basket are Ray-Ban sunglasses some cute LV earrings, a keychain and matching Tumbler!!!"
Gail Wepner, award winning artist, will be donating a beautiful piece of art for auction. She describes it as being an "Acrylic painting on reclaimed Pecky Cypress wood (Florida's oldest wood submerged in waterways for hundreds of years) found at an old time sawmill. Taken to studio where it is sanded, cleaned, then polyurethane'd. Then painted, and polyurethane'd 2 more times making my art weatherproof."
All Bodies Massage donated a gift certificate for any massage services valued at $100 for one of the raffle items.
We also received over $400 worth of gift cards (not all shown) from the Villages Community Development Center Recreation Dept. Steve McRoberts, also donated a restaurant gift card.
Multitasking
As busy as we are with the first KLT LOL festival, we still have other KLT foundation business to take care of. Sadly a family tragically lost their 19-year-old daughter and we have been working on delivering supplies and catered meals to help them during this difficult time. We’d like to thank the people who stepped up to help deliver the meals; Shannon Brandenburg, Johnna LaLonde, and Kris McCall. We also want to thank Mojo’s in Belleview for sponsoring one of the catered meals for the family.
We’ve also been diligently reviewing the applications for the Kathryn Leigh Thurgaland Memorial scholarship. The competition is high and the applications are impressive. It will definitely be a difficult decision for the board members to make. The winner of the scholarship will be announced May 17, at the Buffalo Scholarship Foundation award ceremony.
On a Personel Note
One of my journal entries for “Crazy thoughts from a mourning mother is, “I go from, not caring, to wanting to change the world.” Maybe this is a shared emotion for many, so I want to talk about destructive behavior and ways to “ground“ yourself.
Being grounded, is being mentally and emotionally stable. It means "you’re present in your body and connected with the earth. When you're grounded, you allow yourself to feel centered and balanced no matter what's going on around you.
What are some ways to ground yourself?
Any physical activity (sports, walking, dancing, gardening, etc.) will automatically ground you.
You can also use a meditation sequence to get grounded: Focus your attention on your body, starting at your crown and moving downward, feeling every part of your body. Then imagine an energetic connection (a chord, a tube, or the roots of a tree) coming out of your feet, into the earth. Also visualize such a connection between your root chakra at the base of your spine and the earth, and allow these connections to go deeply into the Earth." (www.mindbodygreen.com) Another method, shared by my daughter, Elizabeth is the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. Here's a great article describing the many benefits of using this technique, Insight Timer blog.
I’d like to encourage everyone to check our social media, and festival page to stay up to date on the festival. You should also keep your radio dialed to 93.7 K-Country, 92.5 & 95.5 Wind-FM. Our ads will be coming out soon!