Thursday, June 4, 2009

6-3-09

A huge apology for not getting the blog out sooner, when Jason and Tawnee arrived back at the rescue in the middle of the night, the power was out with no sign of it coming back on anytime soon. The laptop battery lasted just long enough to get the sneak peek out last night. Enjoy the blog!

First thing after the morning chores were done, Place County Animal Control came down the road.

They had two horses that they brought to the rescue so they can hopefully find their forever homes.
The white one is supposed to be in his teens, the sorrel is 21. They are up to date on worming, vaccination and are looking for a forever home! We will be evaluating them for riding ability soon.
They also donated quite a number of bags of senior feed and a couple bags of developer. Thank you guys for your thoughtfulness.

We really appreciate Placer County Animal Control, they have always been so great to work with, and the extra feed was the icing on the cake.

There it is, all stacked up and waiting to be fed to hungry horses.

Pouncy, now renamed Charlotte, came back from the trainer today. The trainer insists that we can no longer call her Pouncy and that Charlotte is a much better name, so Charlotte is her new name.
She isn't quite riding yet, the trainer did spend a lot of time working with her on the ground, and now she has some great manners.


Charlotte is a beautiful girl and has a lot of potential. Tuesday's blog has an update on a beautiful horse, and Charlotte is from the same rescue and probably related.

Cathy, long lost Cathy, came out as well. It was great to see her and one of her girls again. They promised that we will be seeing a lot more of them. They definitely brighten up the rescue when they come out.

It was about 2:30, and Tawnee still hadn't eaten lunch because of the horses coming. Then we got a call. For some time now, off and on, there has been a couple fundraising for NorCal in front of Wal-Mart in Yuba City. We have been watching them, expecting to receive the proceeds any day. Yesterday a volunteer called to report that they were out there again, so Jason and Tawnee headed off to find out what was going on. They arrived and scoped out the situation, sure enough, there was a booth right in front of Wal-Mart, proudly displaying "Benefits NorCal Equine Rescue" on a sign.

They had a very attractive display, with a wide assortment of dream catchers and lamps.

The sign was attractively placed with a donation can in front with some money inside. You could tell the sign was getting old and had been around a lot!

As soon as we got there, the man pulled out some documents stating he had permission to fund raise for us.
He had an email from us dated 2006. Please, other non-profits, take this as a lesson. Back in 2006, Oroville Mercury Register did an article on us. Shortly after we got a phone call from Cliff Hoffman, with CJ Promotions. He stated that he sold newspapers and magazine subscriptions, and he wanted to donate the proceeds. We thought it was so wonderful of him to offer, and to pick us to fund raise for. We emailed him a letter stating he could fund raise for us, and we were hopeful to see donations coming in soon. We never received anything, so we assumed that he had changed his mind. But, the paperwork that the man pulled out was the same email we had sent over 3 years ago. He had it laminated to ensure its long life.

We believe he has been raising funds in our name since then. He admitted he had never sent funds to us "I didn't know how to go about it."

Tawnee looked at the donation can, and to her horror, it was marked for Horse Rescue Relief and Retirement, Inc in Georgia, so the donations in the can legally belong to them! Tawnee asked if the folks in Georgia know that they were raising money for them. The man said "No, I'm raising money for you guys." Jason: "Apparently you're not since we haven't gotten any." Man: "No sir, you have not." We of course videod as much of the conversations.

It was decided to let them finish out the day and all the proceeds coming in would, of course, go to NorCal Equine Rescue. We asked about all their previous fundraising efforts, and they thought they could find the records at home somewhere if they looked for them, but they were not sure where the calendar was. They weren't really sure if they had done 3 or 4 fundraisers for us, but it was definitely "about three" at this store. They had been at Sacramento and who knows where else. They stated they go to a lot of craft shows.

They decided to quit selling their items and pack up early.

While they were putting away items, we found other evidence of fundraising under our name such as this slip they has stuck in the bottom of a box.

We decided before they left that we had better get the funds straightened out for at least todays events. We had volunteers sitting in the parking lot watching how much they sold, so we hope that at least today's funds were actually donated where they were supposed to. While counting she would count bills multiple times, and try various other tricks for not handing over the full days funds. She started arguing and getting quite flustered and upset, at which point a by-stander called the police to make sure that it all remained peaceful. In all they handed over about $130, $23.56 of which goes to the horse rescue in Georgia.

The police arrived and took down a full report and told us to take them to court.

The police searched their belongings to make sure they did not have any NorCal fundraising signs remaining.
Soon they were loading their stuff into their truck to head out. If anyone ever sees people fundraising for us, please give us a quick call to see if they are legitimate or not. We are hoping to put an event calendar on our website soon which will list all of the approved events and fundraisers. Please, other organizations, beware: don't give a letter stating that people can fund raise for you to anyone, apparently they will quite often disappear and make a bunch of money for themselves under your name, plus they can bring a bad image to your organization by a lack of knowledge about your organization. For instance, they told us "People ask if we can take horses, what do we say?" And "What is an equine?"
If anyone has seen this booth anywhere or anyone by the name of "Cliff" or "CJ" raising funds for NorCal Equine Rescue, please let us know!

Then, around 7:00 pm, Jason and Tawnee left to get some lunch.

Tawnee's favorite restaurant is Chipotle, so, they grabbed a quick bite to eat.

Tawnee got her sunset photo on the way back. The pretty sunset gave no warning for what was coming.

On the way back from the babysitter, it was pouring rain and very dark. It was the hardest rainstorm they had seen in a long time.

But with the lightning flashes, it would almost be as bright as day.

It was the most amazing lightning display Jason or Tawnee had ever seen. There was a lightening strike at least every 20 seconds. Yes, they really did take this picture last night.

Upon arriving at the dark rescue with no power, Jason hiked the laptop up to the top of the hill to get internet reception and sent out the sneak peek.
Again, please be aware when people are working a fundraising booth, they may not be legitimate!
Thank you Summer E for donating! We really appreciate your donations!

4 comments:

Horseartist said...

Just amazing... especially that they had the letter laminated and didn't know what equine meant.

Unknown said...

Personally, I don't know why you felt you had to block out their faces!! I would have exposed them, nothing you are printing is libelous; just printing the facts. What scum!

ariemay said...

I, too, would like to see their faces.

I really hope you are able to nail them to the wall for that.

I'm certain the IRS would be interested in their "fund raising" as well.

SCUM.

Horseshooter said...

I have seen their booth and their sign before, I think it was at the Gavilan Hills Horse Expo in April (near Riverside, California.) I still have the vendor flyer from the event, but don't see anyone named "Cliff". I have a really good memory for typefaces/layout, am certain I saw it somewhere, another possibility is the Ranch Hand Olympics held in Norco last fall. Whenever it was, it was after you started offering the euthanasia deal, as I had a warm and friendly feeling in my heart as I saw your name on the laminated sheet.

 
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