March 26, 2010 Dates to Note Friday, March 26 Dance lessons Village Community Ctr. 2pm Sunday, March 28 Ranch Birthday Party Senior Dorm Rec Room 7pm Wednesday, March 31 "Inside Out!" --an alternative learning experience! T&E Plaza 1pm Good Friday, April 2 No training sessions Happy Easter! You can now find the current month's calendar of events at http://www.marbridge.org/calendar/ Our volunteers St. Michael's sends another army of volunteers Seniors from St. Michael's Catholic Academy visited Marbridge on Tuesday, March 23, for a morning of service. More than 125 students helped complete several projects around our campus, including flowerbed maintenance, vehicle washing and gym clean-up. They also helped facilitate activities, making balloon volleyball and Easter BINGO more enjoyable for the residents. Thank you St. Michaels! Congratulations We welcome our newest staff baby!   Patricia Sanchez, Villa medical records clerk, gave birth to Aaron E. Sanchez on January 5, 2010. He weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces and was 19.75 inches long. Aaron joins three older brothers--Adrian, Joell and Reuben--in the Sanchez family, which also includes dad, Enrique Sanchez.  We appreciate your financial support! Make a donation online! Marbridge depends on donations to close the gap between the services we provide and the revenues we receive. Your support helps ensure we can continue our mission to provide A Whole New Life to adults with intellectual disabilities. We can't stop horsing around! Jerry Ladner and Simba competed in the Showmanship event and took fourth place. Marbridge team wins Gold Club Award at the 2nd Annual Gold Stirrup Horse Show Volunteer Ted Smith congratulates Daniel Hale on a job well done. What a great show it was! Seven teams and 62 exhibitors demonstrated their equestrian talents at the 2nd Annual Gold Stirrup Horse Show at Austin's Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo on March 14. The show doubled in size from last year's premiere event, thanks in part to the sponsorship of our friends at Carino's Italian Restaurant. Marbridge showed up in force, with 17 equestrian athletes and six mounts. They competed in four events--Showmanship, Trail, Western Equitation and Barrels. Many of them placed in the events, but as a team, our athletes won the Gold Club Award, which goes to the team that best demonstrates preparedness, good sportsmanship, club presentation, enthusiasm and team spirit. A special thanks goes to the volunteers who helped make our team's participation in this event possible:  Sandy Smith, Laurie Duran, Kevin Lawson; Angie, Ted and Cole Smith; and Cheryl and Preston Brock. A big thanks, too, to Creed Ford for the loan of his truck and horse trailer and his horse, Spirit. Next stop for the Equestrian team:  Special Olympics Regionals on May 2 and the Special Olympics State competition on May 22-23. The King of Horses comes to Marbridge! Brown Distributing thrills residents with a visit from its world-renowned Budweiser Clydesdale   Holding a Thank You sign in appreciation of the visit, from left:  Spook Partlow, art instructor Jan Meeks, Agnes Fuccello Smith with Brown Distributing, Michael Monaco, Jana Kay, director of training & education, and the equine handler from Brown Distributing. "Here comes the king; here comes the big Number One!" Just as the jingle says, residents were told that a world famous Budweiser Clydesdale horse would soon come to Marbridge! On St. Patrick's Day, a semi-trailer turned onto our campus and out stepped Yankee. He is one of 10 horses on the team. "Yankee was a huge hit," said Jana Kay, director of training & education. "We probably had 150 residents get their photo made with him." Many thanks to our friends at Brown Distributing Company for this special treat!   LIFE Lines is published for family, friends, volunteers and staff members of Marbridge, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization that provides training and residential care for adults with intellectual disabilities.