Lotus Haven

02/16/2025

Good morning! Wanted to give you guys a LotusHaven update. We have been in contact with a few local nursing homes who are excited for us to bring the donkeys to visit with the residents. We've also been speaking with a few other places to do animal assisted healing. We are hoping to get some dates on the calendar for the spring! We are going to be teaming up with a national organization that will certify our animals at therapy animals. The animal and the handler will go through training then an extensive assessment then will be a certified team. We are going to start with 3 animals first and me and Levi getting certified. Levi has chosen to work with Jed. And I will start with Jubal and Seneca because they can likely pass now. Once they are certified we will add in the others but this will get us going. We need help from the community to make this happen. Here are the current needs to make this happen:
Expense for each animal breakdown-
Class and evaluation- $250
Boots (a requirement for each animal)- $200
Therapy halter and vest requirement- $200
Spring shots, teeth float and foot trim- $300

Which is about $950 per animal to get them ready. Or $2,850 for all three. This is in addition to our normal fees to care/feed them. If you would like to sponsor one or more of these guys please do so at the giving link. You can also sponsor them on a monthly basis. This week I will do some introductions for each of the 3 we are starting with incase you aren't familiar with them.

First up we have Levi, my special needs son who started all this with me and continues to be a part of it everyday, and Jed. Jed has been with us just over 2 years now. He was an owner surrender where he was well loved but they were unable to give him the care he needed. When we picked him up we had to go three different times to get him in the trailer. We had to practically take him to the ground to get a halter on. Now he willing puts on halter and walks willingly. Jed loves everyone and loves the attention. He is a sweet older soul and is sure to bring joy to many!!! Levi will be his designated handler on visits, and the two of them will work through the certification class and evaluation together.

https://givebutter.com/TOtUQZ

02/08/2025

Want to read a bit about our story? See how you can help? Here is our perm giving campaign you can sign up for a one-time gift or monthly giving here as well as read about our story.
We appreciate everyone who plays a part of this journey!

By Lotus Haven

02/02/2025

And here it is folks!!! Our new professionally designed logo! Much cleaner than the one I completed on Canva lol! Shout to my dear friend Karamedia for the design!! I had someone reach out about designing us a website so that’s in the works now!! I LOVE it. It’s exactly what was in my head with a more modern clean look!

01/19/2025

The chicken 🐔 coup!!

01/11/2025

Levi went down to the field yesterday and sent me this video he took hisself! It’s the sweetest. 🥰🥰 This kid is amazing and this is the proof our donkey therapy will work! Please be sure to follow on fb and TikTok and help in anyway you can to get this thing growing!!! Jelly Roll Bunnie Xo

Check out Jill Bevins’s video.

01/10/2025

We are looking for a few people who want to help really grow Lotus Haven this year. We could use volunteers on the farm some fundraising help, and help with growing social and community involvement. Our next fundraiser will be an online auction so also looking for donations of services and items that can go in the auction. We are hoping to raise enough to completely pay off our barn. Please let me know if you are willing to be a part of any of these things. Not everything needs to be done in person meetings there is a couple of us working on things virtually so time restraints are easier.

01/06/2025

Donkey snow day at Lotus Haven.

01/04/2025

Everyone is tucked in with winter coats on and belly’s full! I hate this cold for them!

12/31/2024

Beautiful Luna waiting for dinner! So muddy I pray she doesn’t get an absses.

12/27/2024

So we were in 1st place for tree contest then a charity much larger than us just blew past us! I need about 200 more people to vote! Just click the pic and give it a ❤️ or 👍. Bonus if you share and/or comment on this post done. (This will help with the algorithm so more people see it) THANK YOU!!!

https://www.facebook.com/share/18S2d4AyXT/?mibextid=wwXIfr

12/24/2024

So proud of Jubal! He was a star volunteers for St Agnes Catholic Church Friday night while they did Las Posadas which is a reenactment of the walk of Mary and Joseph. The kids dressed up and over 130 people showed up and walked singing carols in Español. I heard he was a big hit and was a perfect gentleman! I love that he brought joy to so many that night!! Then Saturday he came for meet and greets at on the lake. Contest for that is still one week away. We’re in the running for both prizes but anything can happen still I’ll post links for the free and paid votes. For paid we are $415 behind first which is a $1000 bonus plus we get all donations. For Facebook likes we are about 20 ahead but it changes daily that one is also a cash bonus!

12/21/2024

I’m sure you guys are tired of hearing about lights on the lake trees and Lotus Haven but this litterally the only fundraiser we’ve done in 2024.
There are 2 parts of the contest. One is paid votes. You can buy a vote for as little as $1. ALL this $ goes directly to the nonprofit then there is bonus cash prizes for the top 5. Right now we are about $500 from the first place (which is an additional $1,000 prize) id love for everyone to do a few votes to help us win. Paid votes can be cast here!

https://www.ticketsignup.io/TicketEvent/CommunityTrees/Register?

The 2nd way to win is through FB voting this is free for you to do all you gotta do is click this link and either ❤️ or 👍 our tree. Right now we are in 1st place (an extra $500 to the rescue if we stay there) there are a couple other non-profits that are very close so please keep voting. This part is FREE to vote.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BGR3Cwzo2/?mibextid=WC7FNe

They are seperate prizes so please vote both ways!!!

Also we will have a couple donkeys there tomorrow for meet/greets so make sure you get your tickets!!

12/01/2024

It’s that time of year again! Lights On The Lake Community Trees! Please help us win by CLICKING THE PICTURE the give us a 👍 or a ❤️.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BGR3Cwzo2/?mibextid=WC7FNe

10/16/2024

The hardest part of this rescue business is loss. We hadn't had one in a while and were not expecting it at all but today I came home to Miss Willow who had already crossed the rainbow bridge. Sweet girl.....Emmett seems to be doing ok and still eating but I am sure he's still sad as they have been together for ever! So thankful for my neighbor who runs Green Is Great Lawn Care, LLC. who brought over some equipment and dug a hole and helped me put her to her final resting spot where she will rest with the rest of her herd. We love you Willow!!

10/14/2024

Needed to share some pretty cool Lotus Haven news!!! A few weeks ago one of Lex's friends came over so her almost 3y old could meet the donkeys. So far her son is struggling with speech and sees a speech therapist. He is pretty much non-verbal. When he came a few weeks ago he actually said DONKEY!! He has been talking about donkey since. Then Saturday they attended our event and fell in love with our baby, Rainbow. She just told us that all night and day the next day he was saying donkey and rainbow!! You just don't know the healing power of my babies!!! (photo not shared for privacy) Now that our angel donor has gifted us a trailer we are ready to start booking therapeutic visits. What we will be open to booking if you have contacts would be:
Children therapy type settings
Foster children events
speech and/or mental health therapy visits
Nursing Homes
VA hospital
Children's hospitals
Therapeutic children living centers
If you have contacts with people in these type of situations please reach out. Would also be willing to book 'for donation' type events such as a trunk or treat or some sort of fall party, Christmas events. We will be appearing at the Lights on the Lake a couple times again this year as well! Would also be looking for some volunteers who want to be animal handlers at these events.

10/03/2024

Finally I feel like I can share what Lotus Haven has been going through. Since we had court today. This likely will be long...

Last January our wonderful friend/supporter Trish Mills donated a great blessing to us (a Ford f350 truck) it needed a little love but had a newer transmission and rebuilt engine and we just needed something safe and powerful enough to pull animals and do some minor farm chores like get hay and feed etc.

I posted on FB looking for help for a reasonable mechanic and someone reached out to me saying they used to own a diesel shop and could help me out. They went and picked up the truck from Frederick and took it back to their house in Martinsburg to fix it. This was mid January 2024. They 'assessed the truck' and said they could fix it for $2500 in parts. He said he loved what the rescue did and wanted to do the work for free. I offered to pay him some at the end but he didn't seem worried about it.

Long story as short as I can make it there were so many excuses, he was busy, family issues, 4 car accidents, child in hospital, work etc. He was so nice and really seemed to know what he was talking about. I gave him the $2500 for parts upfront cause he couldn't afford to front it. Yet I never saw any progress happening.

Finally I decided enough was enough and I wanted the truck back, which they blocked in so I couldn't get it and I had to get the sheriff involved. It is here I found out that this person has an extensive criminal history in 4 states for doing this exact thing to others. Upon the police picking up the truck and getting it towed it was discovered that there was a new hole in the transmission (leaking everywhere) and seats had now been cut with razor and as well as things like catalytic converter and exhaust has been removed and likely sold as that is the most common things to be stolen and resold off vehicles.

The Sheriff dept pressed criminal felony charges against him for this whole ordeal and I filed a civil suit to get a judgement for what this has cost me/the rescue. He finally has been charged and we had court today. The judge agreed that nothing he said was credible and his stories didn't make sense. The judge issued us a judgement for $8500. I am aware that collecting this is a whole other issue and may not happen but the hope is that once he is convicted criminally (charged but not had court yet for that part) the prosecutor will order restitution in the amount of our judgement.

I just don't understand the world we live in sometimes people having no issue to scam non-profits, churches, children, elderly and have no shame about it. I thought I had good intuition but learning not always the case.

I am telling you guys this not because I want sympathy but because I feel I owe the public information because the $2500 was all donations that we raised from Lights on the Lake and some other private donors and the truck was graciously given to us for a need we had for a long time.

I did finally go and purchase a truck (similar to this one used in working condition) to use for these purchases with a loan and high monthly payments. If I ever get the funds back from this guy they will still go towards paying off the truck and/or purchase of a trailer for the rescue. Hoping to have resolve by spring so we can actually start doing some therapeutic visits.

Praising God for stepping in today and for finally having some progress forward in resolving this issue as it has caused me much stress and heartache this year.

Adding pic of new to me truck just so algorithm will let you see this post. Thank you to each and every person who has listened to me unload about this situation the last few months. Please continue to pray for this situation as there is sure to be more court dates and stuff in the near future for the criminal side of things.