Located in Brewster, New York, Green Chimneys is a nationally renowned, non-profit organization, which prides itself on creating futures for children with emotional, behavioral, and learning challenges. A leader in animal-assisted therapy, Green Chimneys provides sanctuary to both troubled children and harmed animals. Using farm, animal, plant, and wildlife assisted therapy, Green Chimneys offers specialized treatment as well as educational and recreational services. Children from troubled and abusive families come from all over the Tri State area to take part in the animal assisted healing process.

On Saturday, July 26, a group of 89 IMLPs participating in the July 2008 Bootcamp, took part in a community service event at Green Chimneys. The IMLPs worked for 5 hours assisting in a variety of tasks around the farm, focusing mainly on BoniBel farm and the wildlife enclosures. BoniBel farm supplies organic vegetables, honey, and maple syrup to the rest of Green Chimneys. Those who dedicated their time to BoniBel Farm split logs, cleaned vegetable beds, pulled weeds, shoveled compost, laid mulch, and picked raspberries.

The wildlife enclosures mainly needed attention around the miniature horse paddock. The IMLPs who spent their time in this area tore down and rebuilt a fence around the paddock for the miniature horses in addition to moving several large rocks from the paddock and surrounding walkway. Some effort was also spent on weeding and spreading mulch around the nearby duck pond. The day concluded with a tour of the wildlife farm by Dr. Sam Ross, the founder of Green Chimneys. The entire Green Chimneys staff was very appreciative, as the work accomplished by the IMLP volunteers would have taken the Green Chimneys staff almost a month to complete and will provide a better environment for the children of Green Chimneys to learn and grow in.

To find out more information about Green Chimneys, please visit the Green Chimneys website.

A special thank you to Tanya Annuncio of GE Corporate for organizing the event and Nikki Lubold, a GE Money IMLP, for contributing to this post.