In the last year or two of the twentieth century, a rash of domestic violence broke out in the quiet little town of Granbury, Texas. Outraged citizens wanted to put a stop to this plague that was infecting their community. They came together, formed Mission Granbury, Inc. and gave it an awesome mission. Use this link for more details on that mission.

The friends of Mission Granbury was conceived as an auxiliary to aid in the pursuit of that mission to aid women and children escape from domestic violence and to assist those suffering in poverty.

Follow these pages to learn some of the details of the ways in which we serve Mission Granbury, and by extension, the larger community. Let the tabs above be your guide through this site:

• What's New? Check this tab to learn about new things on this Web site and their locations. The Mission Messenger button above the tabbed folders connects to the latest issue of the Mission Messenger newsletter.
• Activities: This section describes on-going actives of the members of the auxiliary. This section also will include lists volunteer opportunities available to the members. The members do not all participate in the same activities.
• Special Projects Look under this tab to get information on various special activities that occur only occasionally.
• Training: Auxiliary members are trained by Mission Granbury's professional staff. From time to time printed notes are distributed to help us remember the lessons. Some of these "hand-outs" have been reproduced and accumulated here.
• Calendars: Open this tab for links to the various event calendars kept for the organization. The Event Calendar and Daily Planner list the times and dates of special activities and projects. The Tutoring Calendar gives detailed scheduling of the tutoring teams who work with the children in residence at the Ada Carey Center.
• Documents: This page is an index to various support documents used by the group including the currently active set of Bylaws of the organization and the meeting agendas. These documents are stored in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) so that only the freely available Adobe Reader software is needed to use the documents.
• Forms: This page is an index to various forms used by the group. Forms are stored in Adobe Acrabat Portable Document Format (PDF) and also Microsoft Office formats where appropriate.
• About Us: This tab opens a page about the people of the organization. You will find a picture of the current officers and a link to a list of committee chairmen. You will not find a list of members or their contact information, which we feel is not public information.
• Get Involved: This tab opens your invitation to join friends of Mission Granbury along with a link to the application forms package. Contact information is available at the bottom of the pages of this site.

This is where people go to learn what's new on this Web site.

• 6/17/10: Completed the reorganization of this Web site. Hopefully, viewers will find it easier to navigate.
• 6/17/10: Added the Nitro Web Notebook Activities list. Look on the Documents tab.
• 6/17/10: Added a button to access the latest issue of Mission Messenger newsletter at the top of this page to the right of the 'friends' logo. The June issue will be ready after the 25^th to include something from Camp Carey.
• 6/17/10: Amended the Tutoring Calendar to correspond exactly to Pat Herndon's markup on the Granbury school calendar. See the Calendar tab. Adjusted spacing of calendar to allow correct printing.

This is where we describe on-going activities of the friends of Mission Granbury and this is also a message board where Mission Granbury staff members can make their needs for volunteer help known. All of our activities are centered around Mission Granbury's Core Services and the needs of the agency's busy office that administers those services.

There is urgent need for additional help in the office of Ada Carey Center. Check with Shelba Stover, 817-579-6848, for details.

• There's always a need for volunteers to answer the phone both at the Resource and Ada Carey Centers.
• A variety of office skills are always in demand at Mission Granbury.
• Clients at the Ada Carey Center often do not have their own transportation. Auxiliary volunteers provide transportation to doctor's appointments, and other places where they must go.
• The Ada Carey Center is a beautiful facility that shelters battered women and children. The auxiliary volunteers endeavor to keep it that way. Although the clients do clean up after themselves, our volunteers clean the kitchen appliances on a regular basis, and the rest of the kitchen periodically. The men and some of the women clean the yard periodically.
• Some of our volunteers work in the CASA program in addition fulfilling other auxiliary volunteer assignments. (See the Core Services page for a definition of CASA.)
• We are so pleased that Mission Granbury has recently joined the Tarrant Area Food Bank. Our volunteers haul truck loads of very low cost food back to the resource center to be distrubuted among their poverty-stricken clients with children. On Tuesdays you will find our members unloading the truck and organizing a small "store" so that the clients can pick out foods they need. Volunteers also fill grocery sacks with a day's rations for emergency distributions that are made to clients throughout the week.
• Once an experimental project, brainchild of member Pat Herndon, the Tutoring/Mentoring/Reading (TMR) program for the children in residence at the Ada Carey Center has become a staple of the auxiliary on-going activities. Volunteers each work about two days a month after school helping the children with homework, or reading, or otherwise helping with their educational needs. Sometimes they might just listen to a child if he wants to talk about something. This activity continues two days a week, every week. They plan to continue this activity through the summer with more flexible hours.

Special projects are those projects that are conducted from time to time. Any money-making projects that we participate in would come under this heading. Holiday seasons will find the auxiliary preparing special meals for the clients in residence at Ada Carey Center (ACC). For the past couple of years the Christmas party has included a visit from Santa. The auxiliary members contribute food, gifts, and decorations for the party. Special projects are noted on our on the monthly pages of the Event Calendar and also on the Daily Planner. Both are available on the Calendar tab.

If one wonders why we want to make these special events for the ACC clients, we only have to think of the events that would cause a woman, often with children, to flee her home. When we consider these things, we are happy to try to help them forget their situation for just a few hours.

At this writing, we are planning to conduct Camp Carey, a day camp for the ACC resident children ages 4 (or so) and up. This will be held from 10 AM to 2 PM June 21^st through the 25^th. Auxiliary volunteers will lead the children through activities during those hours. Other volunteers will supply lunch for the children, volunteer camp leaders, and (optionally) the adults at ACC.

We are excited about the new kids notebook computers that are being iniated into use by the ACC tutoring team the week prior to Camp Carey. These computers are pre-programmed with 50 educational activities for the children. The activities are fast moving and fun for the kids. Plans are to incorporate them into the Camp Carey schedules each day. You can find an activities list and the user manual linked on the Documents tab. We are grateful to the folks at Acton United Methodist Church for the donation of funds to buy these computers along with children's books for the ACC library.

• The Event Calendar button loads an index calendar page with buttons for each month of the year.
• The Daily Planner loads a list of special events for the year.
• The Tutoring Calendar is there to help those working in the Tutoring / Mentoring / Reading program at the Ada Carey Center keep track of their scheduled service days.

Our meetings are planned well in advance so that we keep the meetings fairly short and on target. That is not to say that members may not speak up if they have a topic of general interest. Courtesy of our new president, Kay Crain, the agendas are now included on this site for your convenience. Button links Activities List for Nitro Web Notebook kids computers used in the Tutoring/Mentoring program. This is a link for the User Manual for these computers. Click for a copy of the Bylaws friends of Mission Granbury organization. The document is in Adobe Acrobat format which required Adobe reader. You can download a free copy of this software from the Adobe Website, or contact Pat Tyler for a copy on disc.

FORMS SUPPLY

If there is a form you would like to have available on this page, let us know.

foMG Forms

• New Volunteer Timesheet in Excel Format - Select "Save", or right-click and select "Save Target ...". Excel Users: This timesheet adds the time for you! All you have to do is enter your Time in half hour increments, e.g. 1.5, 4, 4.5, etc. The work descriptions are more generalized than what you probably used in the past. Much of what we do is now classified as "Clerical" or "Maintenance and Repair." Fill this one in, then print, sign, and turn in to Rhonda Rogers at the Resource Center. See next item for the one you print first.
• New Volunteer Timesheet (Acrobat format for printing.)
• Volunteer Time Worksheet - Excel Format, It's the old timesheet updated to figure the time on each row. Offered here for use as a worksheet to gather numbers for the new timesheet. Very easy to use.
• Confidentiality Agreement (Acrobat format) Required for Mission Granbury to keep on file for each volunteer by funding agencies.
• Full Application Packet Required for auxiliary members and employees.
• Criminal Background Check & Drug Testing Mission Granbury must perform criminal background checks of all employees and volunteers. This form is our formal acknowledgement of this fact.

Note: Some items on this page and in the Newsletter require Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click the "Adobe Reader" button for the free download if your don't already have it on your computer. You must install it before you can use it. There are versions for all versions of Windows, MAC, and Linux. (If you have a pop-up blocker active, you may have to hold down the Control key so that your pop-up blocker will allow you to load the Adobe page.) You simply download then douple-click the setup program to install. Accept the defaults of the setup program. This really installs itself.

If the 42+ MB download is too big for your dial-up Internet connection to handle, contact Pat Tyler. She can supply the program for you on disc.

Please consider this your invitation to join friends of Mission Granbury if you feel you want assist Mission Granbury in aiding the citizens of Hood County, Texas survive and rise above the poverty and violence that afflict too many of our people today. The information on the Activities and Special Projects tabs of this page will give you an idea of the ways in which our members help the parent organization.

With the training we receive from the professional staff at Mission Granbury, our group of non-professionals from every walk of life can help the organization and its clients in many ways. Some of the jobs do require special training, other jobs can be done by just about anybody.

Upon joining the organization, we are required to fill out application forms which include a confidentiality statement. We must promise to keep all information about the clients of Mission Granbury in the strictest confidence. We don't talk about anything we learn about clients and their specific problems. To borrow a phrase, we can say that, "What's learned at Mission Granbury stays at Mission Granbury."

Please contact Rhonda Rogers, Volunteer Coordinator, at the Mission Granbury office at 817-579-6866, or at this e-mail address: rrogers@missiongranbury.org. Application forms are available for download on the forms page of this site, or click this link for the full application forms packet.