Spring 2018
Mother's Day Brunch and Bike Ride
Every year Amberations is becoming more popular as the place to be for Mother’s Day. We offer one of the most fun biking events in town, a 17 mile ride around scenic Otisco Lake. Riders can compete for a variety of prizes including fastest, slowest and most colorful. Those less ambitious come just to enjoy the delicious spread of food we offer for our Mother’s Day Brunch including quiches, fruits, eggs, potatoes, pastries, oatmeal, yogurt, French toast, real maple syrup, sausage and a selection of gluten free options as well. Kids of all ages enjoy the animals and activities at the barn, including our duck race, and our Treasure Hunt is a great way to discover all that our grounds have to offer. Regulars know our events always include some wonderful music and this day will be no exception.
Consider supporting Amberations by joining us on Mother’s Day, May 13th, for this fun event. Amberations is a not-for-profit organization that exists solely on donations and the efforts of volunteers. Our Mother’s Day event is one of our two annual fundraisers; all funds raised go to the care and feeding of our animals and support and upkeep of our grounds.
Participant fee for the scenic ride around Otisco Lake is $30 per person and $60 per family with brunch included. For guests not participating in the ride, brunch costs $14 for adults and $8 for children under 12, under 5 free.
Bikers register between 8am and Jam and riders depart at 9am. The barn, animals and grounds will be ready for fun and exploration. At 10:30, our brunch begins. All this takes place at the Otisco Lake Community Center, 2223 Amber Road in Marietta (adjacent to Amberations' barn).
Help Amberations
Amberations was founded on a vision and a wish. Our mission is to get people outside. Enticing people to enjoy our lovely 50 acres is our focus. We charge visitors nothing and hope they will show their appreciation with donations and support. The budgeting and planning that usually go into this type of venture were always rather vague and mostly hope based. Our founder, Gloria Wiley, will take full responsibility for this.
Amberations has managed to survive over ten years and has been fortunate to have grown during that time. In an effort to continue, we are working towards a plan for sustainability. Our budget falls short every year and it is only the generosity of a few devoted friends that get us through. We have significantly increased the number of people visiting over the last few years, however, that has not increased our financial support. It has increased the amount of work that goes into ground’s maintenance, trash, outhouse upkeep, etc. We need to come up with ideas to bring in more volunteers, support and revenue; donations are what keeps Amberations going.
We are actively seeking monetary donations, pledges of support, corporate sponsors, volunteers, fresh faces and new ideas as well as a financial/legal advisor.
Please consider how you might help; the possibilities are endless.
Thank You!
THANK YOU Anne and Paul! Also, thank you: Fairmount Glen Miniature Golf, Gannon’s Ice Cream, Rosamond Gifford Zoo, MOST Museum of Science and Technology, The Bikery, Daniel’s Grill, Boom Boom Mex Mex and all the other supporters that continue to make our events fun and successful!
Yelp Elite Event Coming
In June, Amberations will be hosting a Yelp Elite Event on our grounds!
In case you don’t know, Yelp is the biggest leading review website there is. Anyone can go on, create an account and review pretty much any location. Restaurants, stores, gyms, gas stations, etc.
Volunteer Thomas has been using Yelp for a couple of years and has what they call Elite Status. He’s written very thorough and detailed reviews and provided pictures to the point that Yelp considers him a valuable user. When you have Elite Status, you are invited to private Yelp events at various businesses every month. A lot of these are places that have low scores, are brand new or are not well known. They team up with Yelp to get Elite users into their businesses in the hopes that they will write a positive review, and in turn, bring more eyes to their site. Yelp provides an event at no charge, basically providing a lot of free advertising from the highest rated Yelp users.
Thomas recently attended an event and was wearing his Amberations hoodie at the time. When asked about Amberations by the Yelp Syracuse Ambassador who is in charge of setting up the events, he told him about our grounds, our mission and our fundraisers. The ambassador liked what he heard and asked if we'd be interested in hosting a Yelp Elite Event!
This is a great opportunity for Amberations to attract a lot of new visitors. A Yelp account for Amberations was created months ago in the hopes that some people would see it. We do have a couple of reviews but thousands of people use Yelp every day. By hosting this event, 20-50 Elite users could write reviews and potentially get even more people enjoying Amberations.
We have some great activities planned for this event including a meet and greet with the animals in the barn, a HorsePlay activity hosted by Jamee with her horses Q and Chi Chi, games, a treasure hunt and Amberations rarely hosts an event without some great, live music.
We would love to hear YOUR ideas! What kind of activities can we offer to really show the best of Amberations? Give us your suggestions! We can’t wait for this opportunity to show what Amberations is all about and we thank YOU for all you do for Amberations!
Outdoor Life Learners and Amberations
by Amanda Conta Steencken and Lori Harper
Once upon a not so distant time, children would go to school, learn what schools taught, and then go home and play. Kids would play until dark or later, invent their own games, establish their own rules, work out their own issues in their own kid-established hierarchies. This, coupled with reasonably long recesses in school, allowed for ample and much needed downtime in a developing child’s brain. Over the last 30 years, this time for free play has all but disappeared from our children’s lives. A typical “day in the life” today features a child going to school and then being shuttled to assorted adult-led, after-school activities, followed by homework. By the time dinner rolls around there is very little opportunity for meaningful exchange with family. To make matters worse, recess is severely diminished, and kids often don’t even go outside during the school day.
Why is this important? This is important because removing free play from the educational equation has devastating consequences. In an effort to teach such important STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and ELA (English Language Arts) skills we have been systematically chipping away at our children’s other crucial life skills, The Other STEM skills (Sensory development, Teamwork and problem solving, Emotional IQ and Motor development). The Other STEM skills develop through free, unstructured play.
Ata time in a child’s development when they most need free, unstructured play, we have successfully taken that play away. Take away play in childhood and kids adapt. But they do so at the expense of a healthy sensory system. Take away play in childhood and kids carry on, but at the expense of a healthy emotional intelligence and their ability to positively interact with others. Another way of saying this: take away play in childhood and kids maladapt. By taking away free play, we undermine proper development of The Other STEM skills, resulting in stressed-out, anxious, emotionally wrecked, uncoordinated little humans.
The most efficient and affordable way to reintroduce free play into our children’s lives is to get them outside. A lot. Every day. Daily outdoor excursions and nature immersion activities have the advantage of stimulating the whole body. All the senses are triggered and forced to fire. The interactions between sensory networks, motor and limbic systems are strengthened and children develop in a more well-rounded manner. Unfortunately, many families at home and teachers at school are unable to set aside large blocks of time for free, outdoor play with their children. Work schedules, government-mandated curriculum standards, testing requirements, etc. all interfere with the all-important need for free,
unstructured play every child has.
The nature immersion programs offered by Outdoor Life Learners (OLL) at Amberations were born out of this need to reintroduce free play into a child’s daily rhythms. These programs all share similar findings, including the fact that when kids are placed in an environment that they enjoy and understand they are more likely to develop a love for learning that will accompany them throughout their K-12 career, and well into adulthood. When kids are free to explore, imagine and manipulate their surroundings in a safe educational environment, they will develop the framework needed for acquiring the necessary academic skills to further their learning. Learning outdoors makes the experience fun and easy; children look forward to it and don’t view learning as a chore. Indeed, children develop their outlook on life in general in whatever school setting they find themselves in. If they are encouraged and engaged, they develop a positive outlook on their surroundings. This is especially important to keep in mind with boys. Boys are naturally less able to sit still for long periods of time, and yet it is something they have to do in a traditional school setting. When given the opportunity to learn outside, on the other hand, they find learning fun and challenging. They have longer attention spans, engage more readily in conversation, and seem to feel more adequate around their peers and adults. Children respond positively to the out-of-doors, which does not stifle them, and their outlook on life seems unencumbered. It is as if they have learned to feel at ease with their abilities. Acting out is not a temptation. They are more at home with themselves.
OLL and Amberations have teamed up to bring back unrestricted, unstructured outdoor play so we can better nurture our children’s Other STEM skills. Only when The Other STEM skills are honed, will the traditional STEM and ELA skills truly stick and work in their favor. Every week, OLL children gather at Amberations to explore the vast woodlands, meadows and pond and partake in caring for the animals at the barn. Such a holistic, nature immersion experience is providing a beautiful, protected space for our children to grow and develop the way Nature intended. We at OLL are forever grateful for the opportunity to work with Amberations and look forward to exploring new and better ways to collaborate and help further each other’s missions.
Transparency
Amberations exists on a 50 acre tract of land owned by John and Gloria Wiley. The Wiley’s do not charge anything for the use of their land, nor do they reap any financial benefits from the relationship. It is their goal to establish a plan whereby Amberations can continue even beyond their lifetimes.
Basic yearly expenses:
Insurance: $1800.00
Animal feed: $1500.00
Animal care (vet/farrier, etc.): $700.00
Mowing: $500.00
Newsletter/Brochures: $700.00
Miscellaneous:* $600.00
Total: $5800.00
*Miscellaneous: nuts, bolts, fencing, solar panels, solar lights, etc.
The above budget does not account for all the volunteer hours we are so appreciative of.
Our two annual fundraisers net us an average of approximately $1600.00 each. Our newsletter ads net us about $500.00 annually. These sources of revenue come to roughly $3700.00. Additional funding sources are needed to cover our annual operating expenses.
In addition, Amberations purchased a small house 4 years ago. Purchase price was $18,000 plus $7000.00 in mandated renovations plus closing costs. For reduced rent, our tenants cover half of our animal feedings. We are fortunate to have found an enthusiastic and caring couple who support us in countless other ways as well. There would be many benefits if we could pay off the remaining $23,000 of the house mortgage. Currently the rent we charge just barely covers the mortgage and repairs.
The house is very much in need of new siding, circuit breakers, landscaping, stone for the driveway and an outdoor storage shed.
Joe’s Special Friend
Armanda Chapelier was born in Italy. She met and married her husband, Edgar (who is Belgian), there and they moved to the United States. Edgar and Armanda had two daughters. Armanda worked as a nurse for many years.
A few years ago, Armanda visited Amberations for the first time with one of her daughters during our Spring open house. She was delighted to discover the animals at Amberations. Armanda is an avid animal lover. She has always had cat companions and religiously feeds the birds and pesky squirrels in her backyard.
She distributes newsletters for PAR (People for Animal Rights) and is also a member of the Beaver Lake Nature Center. At Beaver Lake she enjoys walking the trails, sitting and watching the animals from the viewing room, checking out the latest goods in the gift shop and seeing presentations from animal sanctuaries (raptors, reptiles, wolves, etc.)
When she first visited Amberations, Armanda made a commitment to support Joe with a monthly donation to help with his care and feeding. Not only does Armanda send a check every month, she includes a nice hand-written note in a beautiful card, almost always with a picture of an animal. Armanda says she chose to support Joe because donkeys are the most abused animals every place in the world. She found Amberations to be nice... beautiful. She has since come to visit several times, wants to see us keep doing what we are doing and says she is glad to be able to help us.
Thank you so much Armanda!
Bunnies 101
This winter Morgan Cussen and Samantha Ruiz smuggled our bunnies in and out of their dorm at SUNY Brockport. Neither of them had ever cared for a bunny before and they decided to help Amberations out by giving our rabbits a warm home for the winter. They thought it would be a different experience and that it was. While there were times it was a lot of work to give them all the attention they needed, it was overall really enjoyable. They tell us the bunnies, who they called Luna and Eclipse, were great stress relievers and always put a smile on their faces when they were down. While Morgan and Amanda say they would love to do it again, they won’t be able to in the new house they’ll be moving into this year. They tell us it was an amazing experience and everyone in the building loved them.
Thanks guys!
Sydney
I’m Sydney. I’m 18 years old, and I’ve been a volunteer for about a year now. When I was a kid, my mom would always take me to Amberations with my friends. It definitely made my summers memorable growing up. Over the years I’ve developed such a love for this place, which is why I wanted to start volunteering. As a volunteer, I muck stalls, feed the animals, and of course give them some love while I’m there. I absolutely love being a volunteer at Amberations! It’s very hard to have a bad day when you visit; I just can’t help but smile when I see the goats and Big Joe. I’m constantly bringing my friends to visit the animals and spreading the world through social media. There is absolutely no thanks needed for what I do. I love my time at Amberations and being able to get away from the stresses of the world at least once a week is thanks enough!
— Sydney Spanfelner
Lovely Frog Willow Pond
During our Fall Festival Amberations sponsored a name the pond contest. Griff Williams, the volunteer who worked so hard to build our pond, was on the selection committee. He quickly vetoed all the names that included Griff or Williams.
Our waterhole has been named a perfect compilation of two separate suggestions: Lovely Frog Willow Pond. Please make the time to stop by and relax for a bit. Listen, smell and feel. Observe the beauty and the many creatures who have come to make this their home.
One more thank you to Griff.
Summer Odyssey 2018
Summer Odyssey Camp gets better and better each year with more fun activities and natural areas to explore. This will be the fourth year running and the campers can’t wait to be back for more fun this year.
Amberations Summer Odyssey is an all inclusive outdoor experience welcoming any child (4th-7th grade). This year we will feature activities including hiking, visiting with animals, fort building, terrariums, sand sculpting, arts and crafts.
Last summer our musical guest, Harvey Nusbaum, returned for a visit. We also made ice cream and ended the week with a puppet show featuring our handmade puppets.
These are only a few of the fantastic adventures campers will enjoy during our flexibly scheduled week of fun. Campers are encouraged to suggest ideas for fun that we will work into the activities of the day. Each year campers work together to build a fort in the upper fields to play in during their time together. The camp will be offered Monday through Thursday 10am-4pm starting the first week of August.
We provide experienced certified staff who love working with kids. Visit our grounds to see what Amberations has to offer for your child’s camp experience. Plan ahead, call the Marcellus Parks Department to reserve a slot.
Depending on interest, Amberations may add a week for younger campers. Let us know if you have a school aged child interested in enjoying Amberations’ Summer Odyssey.
