Month: June 2017

Friday Blogging

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Berry picking! We found wild raspberries growing in our garden and we picked ’em!
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Diane and Maryann helped to pick too!

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Nice one Shirley!
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Pick on ladies, pick on!
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All done!
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Checking out our young Dogwood Tree! (Thank you to Brandon for clarifying – we thought it was an apple tree, oops! We are lucky to have our resident Plant Guru here to help with the blog! Haha!)
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Finishing up cupcakes, baked and decorated by volunteers of YouthWorks© and participants of No Limits, to be donated to the SPCA’s Friday Bake Sale!
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A close up shot of raspberries that we picked from our garden!
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Pound cake with fresh raspberries and a drizzle of icing! Yummmmmm. More please! Thank you to the Womens’ Circles of Market Street United Methodist Church for donating the cake!
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Brandon doing yard work! Good job!
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Lookin’ good Amy and Teresa! Hanging out before exercise group begins!
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United Way Exercise with Betsy! Always a big thank you to the United Way of Virginia’s Eastern Shore for awarding us grant funding to continue our exercise program.
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1-2-3-4 Happy Days! We are happy to plant indoors on a hot day!
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Great work!
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Kyle delivered the beautiful cupcakes made by members of No Limits and volunteers from YouthWorks to the SPCA of Accomack’s Bake Sale today!
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Farmer DJ! Nice shot.
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Caring for the chickens take 1!
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Take 2!
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Amy and Brandon are making chicken treats! We freeze corn in cupcake tins with water and toss ’em to our chickens on hot days! They tear ’em up! We love to spoil our chickens!!

YouthWorks Week Two 2017

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YouthWorks Week 2 viewing a “Welcome to No Limits” and “Brain Injury Prevention for Teens” lesson.

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After the YouthWorks volunteers view the 2 educational presentations we have some fun and get to know the volunteers with a Gross Motor Game!

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Each week that YouthWorks volunteers are here at No Limits we have day of education and getting to know one another and then we have a “project work” day!
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Here we see some folks getting ready to help us out with yard work.

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Brandon was impressed to see YouthWorks’ hard work in helping us weed our pollinator garden.

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YouthWorks Week 2 also helped us to make more catnip toys to be donated to local animal shelters.

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Making cupcakes for a bake sale to benefit our local SPCA facility in Accomack.

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BEAUTIFUL!

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What a wonderful bunch of folks! We are so blessed to continue working with this wonderful organization. Thank you to each and every volunteer from YouthWorks Week 2 – y’all ROCK!

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Friday Blogging

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Our pollinator gardens in action! Buzz away bee – not really!! We love bees, we love pollinators, & we love the ESSWCD’s Billie Fitzgerald Memorial Grants program for their support!  This trumpet creeper is a native plant that is great for pollinators and we encourage the planting of Eastern Shore Native Plants!
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We love this shot of our sign and some of our beautiful day lilies!
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Zel washing dishes – Theresa says, “Where’s his apron?”. She also says he should get an award for all the helping he does at No Limits!
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DJ helped YouthWorks wash our vans. He has a sponge in his hand, ready to work!
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Our berries look GOOD. These grow wild at the edge of our yard. Our cultivated berries are coming along too!
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Another product of the Eastern Shore Soil & Water Conservation District’s Billie Fitzgerald Memorial Grants program, our butterfly bush is looking great! This bush not only survived the move from Onancock, it seems to love it here in Tasley!
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David, Theresa and Amy getting ready to roll ’em out, making dog biscuits for our local SPCA and Animal Control shelters…the YouthWorks kids were jealous of their skills!!
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Keep an eye on this site. This is the BEFORE picture. We are locking down plans for accessible outdoor pathways and shade in our pollinator garden and it will be beautiful!
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Cucumbers growing!
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Cucumbers harvested! The first of the season!
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Our little girls are growing up! Stay tuned for more info on Cute Chicken Wednesday, we released the 9 young hens from their coop and let our ladies mingle for the first time.  The short video below captures the release. They are very happy to free range in the yard!

YouthWorks Week One 2017

Summer is here and that means YouthWorks is back – YAY!!! YouthWorks Season at No Limits is off to a great start. This week’s groups came to us from Pennsylvania and they were fantastic – fun, friendly, and hard-working! We have been partnering with YouthWorks since the summer of 2013 and we literally wait all year for them to come back. They give us an opportunity to be of service by providing brain injury prevention outreach and they help us out tremendously with their work. Here are the pictures from this week:

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Our Executive Director Rachel Evans giving our Welcome to No Limits powerpoint.
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We have a brain injury prevention presentation aimed at teenagers that we share with the YouthWorks volunteers.
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After the powerpoints, we break the ice with an example of one of our activities: a gross motor game! At No Limits we use games like this to promote movement, balance and eye/hand  coordination after brain injury.

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Day One is for Presentations & Games but Day Two is all about work! The YouthWorks crew washed our vans til they shone!!

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They also helped to make catnip toys for our local animal shelters with catnip we grow here at No Limits!

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The YouthWorks folks also helped us make our monthly dog biscuits and cat treats for local animal shelters.

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Last but far from least, YouthWorks helped us by weeding and cleaning up the garden at the base of our sign. Thank you for coming and thank you for helping!!!

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Friday Blogging

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More shots of our day lilies!
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We love these beautiful flowers! Nice shot Cameraman Brandon.
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Amy and Maryann workin’ hard! They organized our storage closets!
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Cut on my men, cut on! The Pollinator Garden is lookin’ beautiful!  (Always a huge thank you to the Eastern Shore Soil and Water Conservation District for awarding us grant funds over several years to assist in keeping this garden growing!”
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Laugh on while you work, DJ! Havin’ fun cleanin’ the coop!
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An “accident” shot of our Butterfly Bush blooming!
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Spot the butterflies! How many do you see?!
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A native “Trumpet Creeper Vine”. We love native plants!
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Brandon admiring his canna lillies. He says “look we’re in Costa Rica! Just kidding, we’re still in Virginia.” Brandon would like everyone to know that cannas grow sub-tropically, and therefore these beautiful plants can grow from the Southeastern United States down to Northern South America! Cool!
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Giving the chicken yard some TLC! Go Brandon! It looks really nice!

Thank You Karen Brown!!

No Limits Eastern Shore would like to say a huge thank you to Karen Brown, Executive Director of Brain Injury Services, a state-contracted brain injury services provider headquartered in Springfield, VA, for her years of service and advocacy on behalf of the brain injury survivors of Virginia.

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Karen Brown, retiring Executive Director of Brain Injury Services

Karen is retiring this month after over 20 years of service at Brain Injury Services and over 40 years of advocacy work as a pioneer and trailblazer in brain injury services provision. She is a Past Chair of the Virginia Brain Injury Council, the Virginia Alliance of Brain Injury Services Providers, and the Fairfax County Long Term Care Coordinating Council. Karen was the 2017 recipient of the Brain Injury Association of Virginia’s Weinstock Award.

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Karen Brown accepting the 2017 Weinstock Award from Anne McDonnell of BIAV

Brain Injury Services was founded in 1989 and became the first community based agency in Virginia to specialize in serving individuals with acquired brain injury. To continue to expand on Karen’s legacy, the Karen W. Brown Program Fund has been established and is accepting donations. Please click here to donate: https://braininjurysvcsorg.presencehost.net/how-to-help/donating-section/kb-fund.html

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We would also like to extend a warm welcome to Denise Hyater-Lindenmuth, who has been hired as the incoming Executive Director of Brain Injury Services. Denise will be only the third Executive Director in BIS’ 28 year history. We look forward to working with her on issues affecting the Virginia community of survivors of brain injury!

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Welcome to Denise Hyater-Lindenmuth!

Friday Blogging

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DJ helping to count money for the No Limits Cafe! Amy says she was supervising!
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Rachel’s family in Maine, Damian & Jennifer McCarthy, donated assorted bingo prizes and resources for our building (this is just a portion of it!) Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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Our b-e-a-utiful shed came! Thank you Backyard Escapes for another beautiful piece for our yard! And THANK YOU to the Eastern Shore of Virginia Community Foundation for supporting our Productivity and Sustainability Project!
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We got to learn about Day Lilies this week! These beautiful flowers only bloom for one day before they die!
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It is such a shame that they do not last longer, but aren’t they so pretty?!
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We are grateful to the Eastern Shore of Virginia Soil & Water Conservation District for their ongoing support of our pollinator gardens through Billie Fitzgerald Memorial Grant funding.
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We hope more lilies bloom around our sign!
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Our Pollinator Garden is blooming! Amy says “come on pollinators! We hope you like it!”
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Jason havin’ some fun stayin’ out of the sun! Nice smile Jason.
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Nice shot DJ! Hard at work.
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Y’all did a great job weeding the herb box! Thanks!
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Brandon using his gardening skills to teach us about bulbs we have never planted. Thanks Denise for donating the Gladiolas!
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Taking care of “Bermuda Grass” that is trying to grow into our Pollinator Garden. Nice work men!

Friday Blogging

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Landscaper Zel! We marked our yard for an accessible path to be built! Stayed tuned for updates on this project throughout the summer!
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The signs that we hand-decorated are sealed and in our garden! They look so nice! Thank you again Maryann and Donnie for making the stakes for us to paint on!
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Nice!
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Weeding is hard work but it’s easier to do it as a team!
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Four men hard at work building a shelf!
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Finished product! Great work!
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Our Health & Safety Coordinator teaching Brandon and Zel how to replace the belt on our mower!
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Got ‘er done! Thank you all so much for fixing it!
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Mow on Brandon, mow on!
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A nice shot of Brandon mowing around/in front of our pollinator garden!
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Photo bomb for Eva’s birthday!
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Happy Birthday Eva! And many, many more! Thank you Faith for helping to decorate the cake!
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Having fun washing kale from our Community Garden in a salad spinner! We made kale chips and they were mmmm mmm good.
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DJ helping to wash the dishes. Thank you sir!