renourish

2010 Dominican Trip begins Jan 4th - Follow Us Here!

As part of our commitment to our re:nourish philanthropic program and our core purpose, we nourish lawns and lives, a team of franchisees and staff will be traveling to the Dominican Republic in early January to spend a week at the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos or "Our Little Brothers and Sisters," orphanage for approximately 160 children in San Pedro de Macoris.

Last year we completed a project that saw the team build a full size soccer field including irrigation and new sod on what was a rocky dirt field. We also irrigated an existing vegetable garden.

This year's theme is agriculture so we will be working with local staff to expand and further irrigate the vegetable garden, build animal enclosures as well as conduct some maintenance work on our soccer field.

If you would like to donate to our efforts please click the donate button below.

Follow us here for regular updated beginning Jan 4th.

For more information on our renourish program visit our website

Nutri-Lawn Newfoundland Launches Annual re:nourish Food Drive

On October 8/09, Nutri-Lawn will be holding its 2nd annual FOOD DRIVE to help refill the shelves of the Salvation Army Food Bank during this busy period.



For more information or to donate contact Boyd Loveless @ 709.728.8830 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Nutri-Lawn Kelowna's re:nourish program collects over 2000lbs for local food bank

Local company ensures Kelowna food bank’s shelves filled for the next week



Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 | 11:00 am
food bank's shelves kept full for a week thanks to a local business

The food bank's shelves were kept full for a week thanks to a local business. (Photo Kathy Michaels)

By Kathy Michaels

Usually they make sure local lawns are kept healthy, but recently the staff at Nutri-lawn turned their attention to families in need.

Over the month of September, Nutri-lawn staff took it upon themselves to collect food items from their customers as they visited their houses to do fall fertilizer treatments — and when all was said and done the local foodbank found itself 2,400 lbs of food richer.

“When we finished loading up our trucks today we had two full loads of food,” said Kevin MacKenzie, sales and customer experience manager Nutri-Lawn Okanagan.

Upon reaching the food bank, he learned the two truck loads would translate into 250 hampers or one and a half to two weeks worth of food supplies.

As a franchise, Nutri-lawn has a give back program in its communities and each is encouraged to do food drives. It was something that was going to fall to the wayside this year, but when news of the fires and the food bank’s struggles to keep their shelves filled pierced their consciousness, they made the decision to move forward.

They contacted their customers, and the project took on a life of its own.

“About 50 per cent, or 600 to 700 families, gave us food,” said MacKenzie. “Each guy was bringing in 70 to 100 lbs of food a day, and by the end we had 51 banana boxes full.”

Now that MacKenzie has realized that the effort was so easy, he’s hoping other businesses will take the charge and help fill the food bank’s shelves.

“We really weren’t sure what to expect but everyone who did it was surprised by how easy it was to give back to the community,” he said.

In addition to this effort, the company also sends a team abroad every year to do work that may otherwise be ignored. Last year a team went to the Dominican Republic and built a soccer field for a community that would have gone without.

And, MacKenzie said, the reward of community involvement both at home and away is irreplaceable.

Nutri-Lawn 2009 Food Drive Now On!

With our 2009 re;nourish Food Drive underway I thought I would share some of the fact from our 2008 efforts.

The Nutri-Lawn / re:nourish food drive program began in Kitchener, Ontario on 2007 when franchise owners Gary & Nancy Mulhall felt the calling to assist their local community food bank by collecting non-perishable food items. They contacted each customer the day before they were due to visit their property asking them to leave any item they wish to donate on their front door and the Nutri-Lawn representative would collect and deliver the items to the food bank.

Positive feedback from customers, staff and the food bank themselves in the Kitchener/Waterloo are soon lead to other franchise owners wanting to do their part in this very worth while cause.

2008 saw eight locations participate with over 12,000 items or 10,000 lbs collected and over $1200 in donations from customers.

NPH Dominican Republic Summer Newsletter 2009:

Thanks to NPH DR home correspondent Megan Palacios' for her Summer Newsletter update.

Summer 2009 Newsletter

If you have trouble downloading News>Download>Look for June 22. 2009 posting.

Our soccer field lives on!

Well after nearly six months to establish itself our soccer field project is looking great!

Jordan had Damon from the Roco Ki golf course do an inspection last week and as a result has offered to do some weed control, fertilizing and top dressing of the entire field! Thank you very much Damon!

Damon had a plant pathologist from North Carolina with him during his visit and they took some soil samples and will do a nutrient analysis for Damon to work with.

Below are some pics from Damon's visit. It looks like when we return again early next year we will be doing some serious weed control around the perimeter of the field.

Update from Mark at the DR orphanage

This week is a time to catch up and re-group. Freda, Joanne, Willy and Tena are here working with the girls in the sewing room at the school. Many have completed the pajama bottoms and are in the completion stages of a reversible wrap-around skirt. Some want to make some special bags next week. We hope to move two of the machines to the tias home so they can continue projects at any time with the girls, not just during school hours. There was a small group of ladies from Nova Scotia connected with the Rotary here yesterday (Wednesday) helping in the sewing room.

Kieran, Ken and Dr. Chris left to visit the NPH orphanage and Father Rick’s hospital in Haiti on Tuesday of this week. They plan to return on Friday afternoon.

It is nice to have Connie with me this week. She has been helping Kelly the one year volunteer from the US with the English program for the past two weeks and again this week. It is quite interesting.

Nina, the therapist from Austria (one year volunteer), has her mother visiting for the next two weeks and then her father will arrive for the last week. Her mom is painting a mural in the therapy room at the clinic. I’ve been in for a peek and one wall is just about completed. Amazing!! She is looking for help from the next group to complete the other three walls.

Julie, from France, (one year volunteer), it teaching French class at the school and is also setting up a library room. The Canadians helped with getting shelves, books, a special desk and also purchased a new computer for use in the library for cataloguing the books. Her parents are visiting for a couple of weeks and are staying with us in our house.
Francisco is working on a roof framework for the new safari seat unit the Canadians made for the truck they purchased. The welder hopes to have it finished by Friday.

Our little group invited the office staff for a little get-together yesterday afternoon - tea, juice, cake and cookies.
Today (Thursday) we have invited all the teachers and support staff, for a Canadian luncheon at our house - BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, jello and cookies for dessert. We discovered they have their lunch at the school with their own children, so the group has grown to about 40. Should be exciting!

I’m working on getting the sleeping quarters organized, schedules, etc. in readiness for the next group. We will have two full houses and another 3 at the clinic - about 45 in all. There are many things for them to busy themselves with.

Saturday will be a busy day. I will meet the team from Nova Scotia in Punta Cana at about 11 a.m., pack them up and head back to the orphanage. Ken will pick up some that stayed a week at the resort and take them to the airport and wait for the Walkerton group to arrive about 4:30 and arrive back at the orphanage for a delicious spaghetti supper about 9 p.m. Sunday everyone can attend mass with Father Ed and all the children at the school.

Thanks for all your support and prayers.
Mark, Ken, Connie, Freda, Willy, Tena, Joanne

Update from team 3 - week 2

This is the second and last newsletter from Team 3 at NPH in Dominican Republic.

This week I am reporting on some different aspects of the Mission. Many pairs of donated and purchased glasses were brought down. Volunteers tested mostly people from the surrounding villages and then handed out glasses. Many of them had been unable to read due to declining sight and were just amazed and thankful for the gift of their sight back.
Some of us had a visit to a nearby Hospital. Many of the areas were dirty and supplies were few.

The electricity wasn’t even on in places. Behind the hospital was a huge pile of unusable wheelchairs and other supplies as well as three or four inoperable ambulances one of which was just sitting on the tire rims. This is such a huge difference to the healthcare we receive at home in Canada. All of the medical supplies that were not needed by NPH itself were distributed to three nearby hospitals.

We had to say goodbye to a few volunteers who left after the first week and we welcomed three more in.

The Medical Clinic continues to see orphans and villagers every day. We were very fortunate to have a multi-talented Registered Massage Therapist with us from the beginning. She treated patients, some of whom had immediate results from their longstanding problems . She also worked closely with the therapist at the Orphanage to teach her new techniques as she continues to work with the orphans that need treatment.

This therapist has also been chronicling the entire experience with uncountable spectacular photos.

The sports team continues to give out sports equipment to towns and schools and also set up and play sports with the orphans. This work has mostly been done in the very hot sun with temperatures over 45 degrees celsius some days.
Other volunteers have been driving vans and the tranportation truck to bring people from villages and towns into the Medical Clinic and back home again. They also drive us on outings we have had like a trip to see nearby caves and the Texas Rangers Training Camp.

Volunteers also continue to work on the endless handyman list.

When we came to Dominican Republic we got out of our chores at home, but not here. Volunteers have been keeping our sleeping areas, washrooms, and kitchen areas clean and also working in the kitchen with the cook and doing endless dishes.

As we pack up we are reflecting on our experiences here and look forward to being home again.