Dear Valued Giants of the Earth Heritage Center Members,
We hope you all had a great Christmas and that your New Year’s is spent joyfully with friends and family. Since it is that time of the year when we reflect and resolve, we wanted to share with you some of our accomplishments and goals. With your support and our volunteers’ hard work this past year, we have taped, edited, and begun online and DVD distribution of oral video histories; taught community fine art and folk art classes; digitized community pictures; organized an extremely successful Uffda Fest; and grown our collaborative family tree, especially by using genetic genealogy. Our website and facebook pages have been viewed nearly ½ million times, providing genealogical resources and tips for tens of thousands. All this we have been able to accomplish with a very small budget, because our workers believe in the importance of our mission. With your support, we look forward to an even more productive 2012, as we are now beginning the new year with interns from Luther College.
Our workers are excited to serve our members and to preserve the experiences of our senior citizens. We believe that the wisdom they pass down can help us identify the root of the problems we face so that we can deal with it directly rather than being like one of the thousand in Thoreau’s famous quote:
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, to one who is striking at the root.”
As a Giants member, we know you want to strike at the root. Thus, we hope you will consider making a special donation or increasing your membership level before the end of 2011. To learn about giving opportunities that allow you to take advantage of Giants of the Earth Heritage Center’s tax-deductible 501(c)3 status, please visit our website. There, you will find many options to suit your donation or membership interests, including Heritage Center room naming opportunities. We also invite you to stop by our Heritage Center in Spring Grove, Minnesota and learn more about our big plans for 2012. Please visit our Giants of the Earth Heritage Center website at:
Happy New Year,
Johnathan Storlie
Giants of the Earth Heritage Center