On July 14th, we kicked off our summer fundraising efforts with a big splash. Our inaugural Party in The Park event was a family-friendly day in the sun at the Silverado Canyon Regional Park in Silverado, CA and it was a major success all around! We had over 100 guests in attendance, including tons of little ones who helped us celebrate a day for our community to come together for this great cause.

Thanks to the help of an amazing team of volunteers and local businesses who donated, we served a full vegan BBQ to our guests featuring the following: Don Lee Farms veggie burgers, fruit salad (donated by Mother’s Market) chips (donated by Vegan Rob’s), cookies and cupcakes (donated by Two Birds Baking). Our incredible volunteer team who served, were able to do so thanks to the generosity of Jasmine from Chicana Vegana catering who donated her grill to us for the day! We offered bar service with beer (donated by Budweiser) and wine (donated by Jackson Family Wines), homemade lemonade, juice and soft beverages. The Kelly Boyz Band played all the classics and country favorites, and got the crowd going with line dancing lessons.

Our littlest supporters got to enjoy the fun of a bounce house (donated by Jump-o-Rama) in our kids station, which also offered face painting, bubbles, hoola hoops, coloring and a scavenger hunt.

In our rec room, we had the pleasure of welcoming three amazing presenters that volunteered their time to educate and entertain our guests: Joni Marie Newman, vegan chef and author, held a cooking demo of her fabulous Texas Hold Em’ Tacos; Gina Bonanno-Lemos, plant-based nutritionist and author, talked to the crowd about how eating a plant-based diet ties directly into the ethics of how we treat animals used in food production; and Kim Curtis, founder of Pink Sugar Project, showed our guests how to decorate delicious vegan sugar cookies.

We offered the air-conditioned Loveland Lounge as a quiet place to relax and cool down throughout the day. Our friends over at our favorite vegan ice cream shop Hug Life stopped by to donate scoops in a cup or a cone to our guests. What an amazing treat for everyone! Our photo op area, featuring our Loveland pig and cow cutouts, was a fun way for our guests to capture the moment with a digital strip of pictures emailed to them after the event.

The silent auction, raffle and grand prize area was open for bidding and entering throughout the majority of the event. Under two large tents, there were over $30,000 in donated products that we received from best-in-class organizations around the world.

With the generosity of our guests, the help of our volunteers and the donations sent to us for this event, we were able to raise $8,000 to further our mission! THANK YOU, THANK YOU to all involved!

We are now just $1,000 shy of the $40,000 mark, which puts us 2/3 of the way towards our bigger goal of obtaining land for our future residents.

This is truly a dream come true for our little non-profit - we’re so honored to know we have such amazing people who believe in us and this collective goal we have for our community. I always dreamed we would get this far someday, but it felt, for so long, so out of reach. We’re going to continue to push this project up the mountain until we get there, because we know on the other side is a happy, peaceful safe haven waiting for some very worthy animals. We hope that you’ll continue to stay with us, or join us for the first time, as we embark on the remInder of this journey. <3

A special thanks to Canyon Feed and Tack, Celebrations Party Rental, World Centric and Follow Your Heart for helping make the day so special.