We sure are having a beautiful fall this year! As we approach winter, we are rolling out a couple of fundraisers to help support Haven Acres in the off season.

First, we are finally able to hold our Bowling for Bucks fundraiser on October 30th this year! We’d love to have a lot of you participate!

Bowling for Bucks is a fundraiser we usually have in the spring every year but due to COVID we were unable to run it as usual this year. With bowling alleys opening with sanitation precautions and social distancing in mind, we are excited to be able to host it this fall! Since we haven’t been able to do some of our usual fundraisers this year, this event will help substantially with all the costs of running Haven Acres during the winter months. This fundraiser usually raises about $8,000 dollars. We’d love it if we could hit the $10,000 mark this year, and we believe we can with your help!

Anyone who would like to participate must first come up with a goal in mind of how much they would like to raise. We ask everyone to raise a minimum of $250 dollars. Then each person will ask for sponsors for their bowling games in person, over the phone, or any other way you can think to! Sponsors can either give a flat donation or pledge to donate a certain amount per point. We realize there is less than two weeks, so we need some adults and teens to commit to going out and getting pledges/ sponsors ASAP. Please shoot us an email at info@havenacresmn.org if you intend to bowl (obtain pledges) so that we have a number in mind as we reserve the bowling lanes. The event usually runs from 6-8pm. We will let you know if anything changes once we solidify details with Bowlero in Lakeville.

By the way, Haven Acres usually provides pizza and pop for anyone bowling in the fundraiser, but we’ll have to see with COVID requirements if we’ll be able to do that this year. The participants will pay for their own bowling games and shoe rental. Usually everyone bowls 2-3 games.

We will also be posting our sweatshirt fundraiser soon, so keep your eyes open for that!

Construction of our new barn is underway!! It has been our dream for years to have a place for equipment and hay storage, a meeting space, and an office. Now in our seventh year we are getting to see that dream come to life!

While our original barn has stalls and a small indoor riding space, the riding space has been taken up with equipment storage and hay. This new barn is the same size as our original but we will be able to put the equipment and hay in there, allowing us to open up our indoor riding arena in the first barn. Hay storage is especially important for us now as we have started leasing our own hay field and are blessed to be getting large harvests of hay. So our horses will still be spending the night in our original barn when the weather is bad, no one is moving to the new barn as far as our herd goes, but it will just be more opened up to be used for them like it was originally intended!

The meeting space and office will also be a huge blessing! Up until now we have been using the Heaths’ house and it would be really nice to let them have their house for just their family. Each day that we have sessions the volunteers gather to have devotions, debrief about the day, and pray for our students, and now we will be able to do that in the new barn. The new office also means we will have all our files in one place, in real file cabinets, and we will be able to have a table or desks specifically for working at rather than using the Heaths’ dining room! The meeting space will also have a kitchenette, handicap accessible bathroom, shower, and locker room.

We are so grateful for this amazing gift from God and so grateful for the people who have donated their time and money to make this a reality! We can’t wait to show it off when it’s all done!

Good afternoon from Haven Acres, everyone!

We realize that all of our volunteers and participant families are eager to know what we are doing this year for Haven Acres with the unexpected issue of a worldwide pandemic going on. We will be attempting to personally call and visit with each one of you individually, but for now a mass email will have to suffice in order to get the information out to everyone as quickly as possible.

We have spent time in prayer, have met with our Haven Acres Board of Directors, have taken into consideration Jenifer’s nursing knowledge and experience, have consulted with quite a few other similar ministry ranches, and have reviewed the governor’s guidelines for outdoor recreational facilities prior to making our decision.

We understand that Haven Acres is an exciting and important part of your summer plans, and we truly are privileged to be able to provide this service. With that being said, however, it is our top priority to protect the safety and well-being of every person that steps foot on our property. Not only are we dealing with a very contagious virus situation, we are also just beginning a building expansion and arena expansion project at Haven Acres which creates a safety risk for visitors. In regard to COVID-19, disinfecting the ranch is next to impossible and social distancing is not compatible with safety around horses, therefore, Haven Acres will NOT be opening one-on-one sessions June 8^th. The Board of Directors unanimously agrees that we should not host traditional sessions for at least the first 6 weeks. The week of July 20^th is the halfway point of the summer, so we will reevaluate the situation near the beginning of July and will update everyone as decisions are made.

Though we know this is very discouraging news, we are earnestly trying to figure out some ways we can reach out to each of our participants and volunteers in the coming weeks. We are considering some virtual horsey visits, “drive-by” visits, or weekly Facebook Live updates of the ranch. We will be sure to contact participants and volunteers and when activities are being offered. We hope you understand that it is our hope to resume programming as soon as possible.

Please keep an eye out on Facebook, Instagram, and our website for updates. Also, we are asking whomever is able to donate one can of Lysol spray or disinfectant wipes to the ranch to help supply us with the necessary tools when we are able to reopen. If each one donates one, we should have enough, but we currently are unable to purchase these items in the quantity needed. If you’d like to donate, feel free to drive up and leave it on our front porch. (2820 245^th St E Hampton, MN 55031)

Finally, be on the look-out for the Spring newsletter. It is due to arrive in your mailboxes in the next 2 weeks. There’s an exciting story in there about a God sized blessing to Haven Acres! You’ll want to hear about it!

Thank you all for your patience! We hope to be in touch soon!

We had an unforgettable night at the Haven Acres Gala last Saturday. We were so blown away by the support and generosity shown by so many amazing people!

Here’s a bit of a highlight reel:

We are so grateful to the Minnesota Horse Council for providing the funding for us to build a new horse shelter for one of our horse paddocks. Though we have 9 stalls in the barn, three of them are makeshift stalls which were originally used for hay storage. As a result of the lost space for hay, we are currently storing hay in the indoor arena. The additional horse shelter frees up space in the barn which enlarges the riding arena space, allowing more sessions to be held in the off season as well as providing more freedom to begin conditioning horses for the upcoming season.

In addition, this horse shelter will save time and money. For example, it reduces the need to purchase stall bedding and frees up time for the staff and volunteers. Time that would be spent cleaning stalls, filling hay bags, and bringing horses in and out of the barn will be spent on more worthwhile things that help the kids and animals we serve.

Lastly, most of the horses prefer to remain outside with the herd. Having another shelter gives the horses the option of remaining with the herd and yet gets them out of the elements. It ultimately creates the best possible environment for the horses, adding to their joy and fulfillment at Haven Acres.

We are grateful to the Minnesota Horse Council for supporting Haven Acres!