Kids Cafe, TV, Farm Rescue

Utah – Monday, September 23

The first thing I did this morning was pick up Tula from the Desert Dog Daycare. They said she was a sweet, mellow dog and all went well. Tula acted as though I’d been gone for months – it was a very enthusiastic greeting! Then I headed off for my first donation of the day, which was going to the Kids Cafe program run by the Utah Food Bank. This program provides a hot meal after school for 1700 students in 27 after-school sites. I arrived at the Utah Food Bank the same time a camera guy from the CBS affiliate in Salt Lake City arrived. They had contacted me over the weekend to see if I could do an interview today – they had heard about my story from the governor’s press secretary who had passed my information on. And when we spoke this morning, we agreed to meet at the food bank. I went in to talk with the person at the desk about my donation, and she called in a couple other people for me to talk to. The CBS guy filmed some of that, plus recorded me handing over my donation. We went to look in the window of their huge commercial kitchen, and today’s volunteers were already working on the next meal. Once the food is made, they keep it in thermal bags, and they have a 4 hour window to drive the food to the various destinations it goes to.

When we were done inside the food bank, the camera guy and I went back outside and we did a little interview on camera (telling me to simply ignore the big black camera is easier said than done!). Then he wanted to “stage” a few scenes – he got pictures of me getting out of the car, and getting back in, and then we drove a couple blocks to a little park, and he got some footage of me and Tula out walking across a bridge. I don’t know what the final story looked like because I wasn’t near a TV when the evening news was on. After the cameraman left, Tula and I walked a bit more in the park.

Then we were ready to leave Salt Lake City. I drove south for a ways to find the Ching Farm Rescue ranch. The physical address wasn’t anywhere to be found on the website (intentional because they don’t want people randomly dropping off animals by their gates). This is another donation opportunity that my friend Perrine suggested – she found out about them quite a while ago when she got up one day to find a potbelly pig in her yard. The farm rescue ranch is different from many of the animal shelters I’ve been to because they’re set up to take some of the bigger, unwanted farm animals – they had horses, a couple steer, an emu, sheep, barnyard pigs and potbelly pigs, goats, ducks, geese, llamas and donkeys. I met Faith Ching and she showed me all around and pointed out all the different animals – and she knows all their names and quirks and who gets along with who! It was vaccination day for some of the animals and a big group of vet techs were out volunteering their time. It’s a nice arrangement for all since the vet techs get good practical experience, and the farm rescue group doesn’t have to pay for their time! Last year the farm was threatened by wildfires, and they needed to think about transporting all those animals to a safer location. When word got out, people showed up with about 25 trailers, and they were ready to do what they had to do. In the end, their farm was saved. I made my donation, then it was time to get started on some walking.

I drove south for several hours, then Tula and I stopped in Beaver to do a little walking. We continued on to Cedar City, and walked a little over 3 more miles before it got too dark. I was kind of close to the Arizona state line, but the next part of the drive would take me through the heart of Zion National Park, and I wasn’t going to miss out on the scenery by driving through the park in the dark, so I stopped for the night.

I only had a couple more miles to walk to finish my 56 Utah miles, and I would do those tomorrow in Zion. All 7 Utah donations were done – the Honor Flight, Central Utah Sharing food pantry, Heart and Soul (Porchfest), Tabitha’s Way, Moab Food Pantry, Kids Cafe and Ching Farm Rescue. Utah took a little extra time because I had to circle back around to Salt Lake City for my flight to Seattle, and then I had to drive south again. But it’s a pretty state to drive through, and I would be crossing into Arizona tomorrow afternoon.