Thanks so much to the wonderful families and to the fantastic Team Starbucks that came out to play and clean with us today for Fall Waterways Clean Up. We were so proud to be a part of the wonderful work that Clean Valley Council is doing for Roanoke. You must check out the beautiful photographs of our merry crew! Check it out by clicking on the link to the right: Event Gallery.
Thanks again to all who came out. Especially to Jon Beard for capturing the moment!
The Donahues
We are very excited about our upcoming event for Fall Waterways Clean up at Green Hill Park - Saturday morning from 9 AM - 11 AM! We will be teaming up with a special team of Starbucks employees (17 of them!!!!) to work together to clean up the area by the picnic shelter along the Roanoke River. We helped clean in this area as a family last year and we (just the 5 of us) collected 6 bags of trash. We wanted to return this year to make an even bigger mark! This fantastic park has been home to so many Donahue family adventures. Help us give back Saturday by cleaning up with us. Consider giving us just one hour or maybe two! Every helpful hand will make it so much better!
The Starbucks team heard about the Kids In the Valley and the fantastic parents who had been coming out to the events. They felt challenged by the work you had done in the past, and gathered a team of volunteers to come out and help us! Plus, they will be bringing coffee!!! and we will be bringing doughnuts!
At 11AM, we will leave the park and head to Wasena Park to set up our first ever Kids In the Valley, Adventuring! sponsored free nature play zone for the families who have volunteered around the city that morning. The Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op will provide a wonderful lunch and the City of Roanoke will be grilling out lots of great foods. Please check out www.cleanvalley.org for more information about this. There will be games, music and lots of free samples and awesome Co-op food. We will go anywhere when the Co-op is cooking!
Please consider coming out to help. KIVA meetings have always been free! We want them to stay free! We do this because we love to see more and more families getting out and making memories together…outside. This is a perfect opportunity to do so. Make a memory and make a difference. Gloves and bags are provided. Wear long pants and sturdy shoes. If you don’t want to get in the water, you don’t have to! There is plenty to do along the shore.
Thank you for helping us make KIVA so much fun.
Chip and Ashley Donahue
Thank you to the families that came out for our wet and wonderful adventure at Virginia Western Community College Community Arboretum today. On this drizzly day, outdoor play was not dampened! In fact, I have to say that this was the most fun I have had in years!
We started with a self guided tour around the grounds on a hunt for the elusive bathroom! Graciously opened by the very kind staff at campus security! Thank you so much! Then we read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. The families then gathered nature stuff from around the garden and came back to create their own creatures and scenes. Check out the creations in the KIVA gallery! After another walk and a soaking rain, we headed back to listen to Ashley read Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin (a BIG hit with the crowd!). After the hilarious reading, we visited with some red wiggler worms from my classroom compost bin! There was even a worm race at some point in the day.
Next, we stopped for a picnic and to visit withour 25 or so attendees! With full bellies, we happily greeted two lovely Master Gardener tour guides and Mr. BeCraft who hosted a few walk and talk tours of the grounds. The kids asked so many great questions! My favorite was the discussion of tips for building a compost pile. Before we left, each kid was given a pack of sunflower seeds and a challenge to plan to plant their own garden next year. I even heard tale of a little guerrilla gardening going on by some of our little troopers.
For our “nature creators” and for those of you who could not make it out, Jon Beard has captured the spirit of our adventure today and it is available right now on our website at the KIVA gallery! Make sure you see the great leaf people our group made. One of my favorite pictures is the last one of the clean-up team who volunteered to sweep before we left. Please consider going out to the VWCC Community Arboretum very soon. It is a lovely place, certainly a Donahue favorite. They are open 365 days, from dawn til dusk. Check their website to see how to receive their newsletter and join their Friends program. We are proud members.
This day was a remarkable event! Hopefully they will consider having us back in May next year! Want to join us next time? Contact us to receive our free monthly newsletter at KIVAinfo at gmail.com .
****We are looking for a volunteer to help man or woman our nature adventure set up at Wasena Park for Fall Waterways Clean-Up, October 4th from 11:30 until 12 PM. We will be working with Team Starbucks for a KIVA event, cleaning up the Roanoke River at Green Hill Park. Contact us if you might be able to help. 540-580-3015
We are just returning from the grassroots conference of the Children and Nature Network in Nebraska. We are floored by the state and national efforts of people trying to give children and families the chance to connect with the natural world around them. We were encouraged by speakers such as Richard Louv and Mark Pertschuk and from break out sessions provided to discuss family nature clubs and outdoor nature classrooms. We met people from all over the world who are working with C&NN to create programs including Take a Child Outside Week and No Child Left Inside initiatives. We have returned with a renewed vision that what we are doing with Kids In the Valley, Adventuring! can be a step stool to lead families to the programs available in the area. These local groups include Roanoke Prevention Council, Clean Valley, and Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Then there are national programs, such as the American Camp Assosiation, 4-H and the National Wildlife Federation.
All of this info at one time can be overwhelming as a parent. That is why we are so glad for the development of the Children and Nature Network website, which allows all of these great programs to be organized in one place. Please consider bookmarking their site and go back often to be inspired by the movement as it grows. You can also check out a page dedicated to Family Nature Clubs- including ours, which we will be helping to further develop with a toolkit for parents who are interested in starting their own!
Two main events:
KIVA on XMKIDS Channel 116 Wednesday 7:30 PM (EST)
Kids In the Valley Adventuring! second field trip! VWCC Community Arboretum, Saturday Sept. 27th 10AM - 1PM. Come out anytime during these hours for a tour, discussions about gardening and composting, and to check for signs of fall. Bring a picnic!
We at the KIVA house have been enjoying life, getting back into the routine, sending everyone off to school and just resting. A special first fishing trip with Papa brought some joy to our middle child (and a lot of joy to the Papa!) We do have a few things coming up, but first we wanted to let you know about a lovely story about our latest adventure printed in the most recent Roanoke Star Sentinel www.theroanokestar.com
We have also been recently noted in City Magazine, The Roanoke Times, Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op’s latest newsletter, as well as in a flier from Walkabout Outfitters (our favorite place to pick up gear!!!!) Whew!
This upcoming Monday is the second annual Party With a Purpose at Roanoke College! We will return again this year to pass out newsletters, sign up some new families and chow down on the amazing food. Not to mention boogie with the band! Check out http://www.greenteamentertainment.com/news-events/party-for-a-purpose-returns-to-roanoke-college/ for more info! Come on out!
We are looking forward to our field trip to VWCC Community Arboretum on September 27th at 10 AM, as well. Check out www.kidsadventuring.org for more. We are also looking for adventure ideas, as we are preparing for next year’s KIVA adventures.
Thanks for your support and for spreading the word,
Chip and Ashley Donahue
Thanks so much to the 78 people who came along with us Saturday as we hiked the wonderful trails of Mill Mountain! What a blast!
We had delicious snacks donated by Ukrop’s of Roanoke, a lovely day for a hike, many enthusiastic families and Roanoke Mayor David Bowers as our tour guide. We led Roanoke’s largest ever travelling kazoo band! KIVA kids rock! Along the way, we met a man who owns part of the trail and learned of a 1953 Chevy stuck up in the woods.
Mayor Bowers also brought his Spanish speaking dog Catcher. Catcher was a delight. Mayor Bowers said many kind things about the families who joined us. He even took time to show us a “petrified” dinosaur in the woods!
The Roanoke City Council will be recognizing the efforts of the many KIVA families at tomorrow night’s city council meeting at 7 PM at the Noel C. Taylor building. If you have enjoyed one of our adventures, or learned about fun places to play through our events, please try to attend. Mayor Bowers welcomed you all, and offered to let all the kids sit in the Mayor’s chair. When I told him we had 200 families on our newsletter list, he simply said the kids would have to sit one at a time…not all at once.
We are proud to be a part of this community. Thank you for helping this simple idea come to life.
Ashley and I look forward to seeing you all soon. If not tomorrow night, please add September 27th to your calendar as we host our second KIVA field trip at the Virginia Western Community College Arboretum.
Have a great week! Happy adventuring. If you did not get a chance to come along Saturday and would like a kazoo, send me a note and we will get one to you!
Chip and Ashley Donahue - not on our newsletter list? e-mail KIVAinfo@gmail.com
150 free kazoos, treats from Ukrop’s, a chance to see and hear Roanoke’s largest ever kazoo band…
Just a few of the many reasons you will want to join us today! Please come out and join us. We will meet at The Mill Mountain Discovery Center at 10 AM for greetings and stories. At 10:30, we will welcome Mayor David Bowers, who has agreed to hike along with us today. We will be hiking a few of the lovely trails around the mountain and then coming back up by way of the old road. We will be hanging out on the mountain until about 2 PM. Bring a lunch!
Today’s KIVA rating is a 4, because of some rocky paths, and the fact that you will be blowing on a kazoo, while hiking!!!
540-580-3015 for questions
Can’t join us today, but you would like to receive our monthly newsletter about upcoming free events in the Roanoke Valley, send us an e-mail to KIVAinfo at gmail.com
Thanks,
Chip and Ashley Donahue
Also, don’t forget about the free family fun weekend at Center in the Square in Downtown Roanoke!
We will be heading there after we finish our adventures on the mountain.
Jazz in July is one of the greatest events Salem offers to the area. Jumping slides for the kids and hot dogs and snow cones, as well as beautiful music for everyone. We had a blast and met a lot of new friends. Several new members ventured out for a day of play. We dedicated the day to the life of Randy Paush who passed away on Friday July 25th. Randy presented a simple message with his life. Our time is limited. Our love for our children is not. If you have not read The Last Lecture, please consider it.
We would like to also draw your attention to another group of concerned families, working to get their families and friends out and about in nature. Nature Strollers presents many great ideas for families. It takes the fear out of going out when families gather together. Nature Strollers was also recently mentioned in a report from Children and Nature Network.
Please mark August 16th on your calendar for our next KIVA event. Take a couple of practice hikes and work on your humming. Free kazoos for everyone who attends Roanoke’s Largest Outdoor Kazoo Concert! Do you kazoo? We do. Want to? (540) 580-3015 or e-mail KIVAinfo@gmail.com
Thank you all for your kind notes of support and encouragement after our recent clip on The Today Show and WSLS. We were so pleased with all the smiling faces and the direction of the piece. When we made our list of events for the year last December, somehow we knew we would need a break come July. We didn’t know we would need this break because of newspaper articles (some front page!), notices on local radio stations, and a spot on national television.
That break comes in the simple idea of getting everyone to come out for just a great big playdate before Jazz in July, our favorite yearly event in Salem. Meet us Saturday July 26th at Longwood Park at 2 PM (***notice different time***) just to play and run around. We will probably read Where the Wild Things Are - by Maurice Sendak and maybe one more, but other than that come out to play. No hiking, no getting lost, and no video cameras!!! Just fun. Wanna roll down the big hill with us?
This simple meeting is a calm before the storm! Just today we received our 150 kazoos from Kazoobie Kazoos! We are going to being heading back to Mill Mountain August 16th (10 AM) to hike the trails and be a part of Roanoke’s biggest ever kazoo band! They will be able to hear us at the bottom.
Practice up your humming… More on that later,
The Donahues
www.kidsadventuring.org
540 580-3015