Third time the charm for Love Grows Love

Third time was the charm for Love Grows Love, an animal assisted learning program, as 100 Women Making A Difference members chose that non-profit for funding last week. "We are very grateful and very relieved," said Love Grows Love founder Donna Hammann. "We're mostly volunteers and we are a fairly new non-profit. The horses always have to eat and have their hoofs trimmed." Future Innovators and Huron County Imagination Library were the other non-profits nominated for funding by 100 Women at the meeting. Love Grows Love was founded in 2017 and moved into their Huron County headquarters on Medusa Road about a year ago. It has several programs to help students of all ages learn crucial life skills while caring for horses, miniature horses, goats, rabbits and guinea pigs. Their programs consist of weekly meetings for six weeks. Barnyard Buddies is for grades one through five, Herd Qualities HQ is for grades six through eight, Pawsitive Fellowship is for grades eight and up and Leadership Toolbox is for high school students. Love Grows Love also hosts regular sessions for veterans and first responders and has held several sessions for various groups of students or adults interested in learning more about animal assisted learning. Hammann said new classes begin every seven weeks and now the non-profits is looking for more volunteers to act as facilitators. "The program is working," she said. "It is a very small scale, but it's getting started. It is encouraging." Several young people have taken the courses and are now helping with younger students. Several attended the 100 Women meeting and talked about their experiences. Hammann is very excited that Love Grows Love is hosting a certification seminar for equine assisted learning in May taught by Greg Kersten, a nationally-recognized expert in the field from OK Corral in Nevada. Over three days, he will teach several people from Love Grows Love, local private and school counselors, staff members from the Marsh Foundation in Van Wert and others from across the country. Having a facility able to host such specialized training is very exciting, she said, and she is eager to find opportunities to collaborate with other groups more in the future. For more information on Love Grows Love, contact Hammann at 419-975-0132 or at lovegrowsloveaal@gmail.com. The group's Facebook page is LoveGrowsLoveALL. The barn is located at 4418 Medusa Road, Norwalk. Future Innovators is a new non-profit started by Sarah Reed to provide access to coding and robotics education not available through the public schools. Her son wanted to be on Norwalk's fifth and sixth grade robotics team, but there were only spots for 20 of the 100 students that tried out. "I understand where the schools are coming from," she said. "They only have so many resources. But you don't know who our next Albert Einstein is." "To me robotics is the future," Reed said. "When I heard 100 kids wanted to be on the team and they could only take 20, I didn't want to shut that spirit down." Reed met with parents of four other boys and they agreed to form an independent team. Reed and her husband agreed to pay entry fees for competitions and the group purchased the building kits needed. The Coding Pirates team was born. Reed said the robotics teachers in the schools have been very supportive of the independent team's efforts. In the Vex Robotics competitions, teams compete to earn an invitation to the state competition. Coding Pirates earned four invitations to state and, based on their performance there, earned an invitation to the world competition in Dallas, Texas later this month. The families are paying costs for the competitions with help from local people who have heard their story and contributed. Looking past the Coding Pirates current competition season, Reed decided to form Future Innovators to continue to enhance coding education for all kids in the future. "We formed our team by word of mouth, but there are 75 other kids that showed interest (in the school team) and we can't forget them," she said. "Our vision is that we would like to have the education kits for each level from kindergarten through high school," Reed said. She has found a donated space for the group to meet after school a couple of days a week so now she is focusing on getting the kits so all ages can practice coding skills and work together. "Not everyone wants to go to competitions," she said. "We just want to teach these kids what the different forms of coding are and maybe just have competitions within the club." In addition to coding, working with the kits teaches life skills, problem solving and cooperation, she said. "Not all families can put in the time and resources to attend competitions," she said, but the young people can still learn valuable coding and teamwork skills through working with the kits. Anyone interested in helping the Coding Pirates attend the world competition or Future Innovators provide coding education in the future can contact Reed at 419-706-8108 or sarahreedrobitics@yahoo.com. Coding Pirates also has a Facebook page. Retired educators Reta Stark and Judy Sommers reminded the 100 Women group about the Huron County Imagination Library, which was nominated for funding earlier this year. The women explained how Imagination Library came to Huron County in 2020 through the work of a steering committee they helped organize. The program was founded by Dolly Parton to put age-appropriate books in the hands of children from birth to five years of age. Each child enrolled receives one book a month until their fifth birthday. In it's first year, Huron County Imagination Library enrolled 1,656 children. The program has grown each year and now has more than 1,800 children enrolled. It costs $25 per year per child to have 12 books sent per year. Sommers and Stark pointed out that research indicates that books in the hands of young children is a key indicator of academic success. Children with at least 25 books in the home are more likely to complete an additional two years of school. Reading aloud to children is also one of the best ways to promote language development. For additional information or to enroll a child in Huron County Imagination Library, go to www.OhioImaginationLibrary.org. 100 Women, started in 2021 by Patti Wilde and Robin Bleile, meets four times a year. In each one-hour meeting, members nominate non-profit organizations as potential recipients of donations and then listen to representatives from three of the nominated groups explain their causes. After that, members vote on a winner and each member writes a $100 check directly to that non-profit. Members also get to hear from the previous winner about how the donations are being used. For more information on 100 Women, go to 100womenmakingadifference.org or e-mail 100womenmakingadifference@ gmail.com.