Community Outreach
Boys & Girls Club of Osceola County
On January 18th and 19th, 2008, the London Creek Ranch Foundation entertained the Boys and Girls Club of Osceola County. We hosted the elementary school age children on the first day and then the middle and high school children the next day. The days started early as the children arrived and poured out of the bus eagerly awaiting the adventures to be had at the ranch! They were so excited as most had never been to anything like this! So we started them out with fishing first in our stocked pond. Many of the children caught at least one fish each! There were so many smiles as this was the first time most of them had ever fished! We took photos of all of them and sent a copy of them home with each one as a memento. Then we stopped for a snack and then the children went for a hayride through the trails on the ranch to see how beautiful an original, untouched Florida ranch could be.
After the hayride, it was time for a real cowboy cookout. We cooked out hamburgers and hotdogs over a fire and had all kinds of homemade food to go with it. The kids had never been to a real cookout either and they ate like crazy! One boy ate five hamburgers by himself! After lunch, "Hands on Wildlife" gave a show to the children - showing them all kinds of animals and letting them hold them. The children were ecstatic! They held foot long alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, skunks, snakes, birds, and possums. They also saw deer, large alligators, and a Florida panther. They learned all about animals becoming extinct, like the Florida panther. They had quite an educational experience, while holding wild animals.
After the wildlife show, the children then had another snack and then spent the rest of the afternoon learning about horse riding, and then learned how to lasso a cow. Each child tried to lasso cows on a wood cow used for practice. I saw quite a few of these children a month later and they begged to be brought back again, but there are homeless children, foster children, boy scouts, etc. who all would like the same opportunity, too. There is much to be done.
