GOOD NEWS FRIDAY sponsored by Liberation Farm - BLUE GRASS FARMS CHAPLAINCY
Friday, May 8th, 2009
By Ray Paulick
Her name is Mary Lee-Butte, but many who have benefited from her work with the Blue Grass Farms Chaplaincy call her “Mary Christmas.” Whether it’s helping organize the chaplaincy’s annual “Festival of Christmas,” an event that brings joy to hundreds of children from needy, horse industry families, or stopping by a nursing home to visit and drop off the latest copies of Blood-Horse and Thoroughbred Times magazines to former horse industry workers, Lee-Butte has a heart, as track announcer Trevor Denman likes to say, as big as the racetrack.
But the Blue Grass Farms Chaplaincy, as the name implies, serves a community much larger than the track. “When we started this organization,” said industry consultant Lonny Powell, the chaplaincy’s founding president, “we saw that it was an enormous challenge. With a racetrack chaplaincy, you draw a square and define the stable area as your community. With the Blue Grass Farms Chaplaincy, we’re serving several counties in Central Kentucky. But it’s worked, and it’s given me great satisfaction and pride to see how many people have benefited.”
The chaplaincy was formed in 2003 by a group of individuals in Central Kentucky that included Powell, David Foley of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the Jockey Club’s Dan Fick, Tom Thornbury of Keeneland, Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association CEO Remi Bellocq, breeder Ben Walden, Bobby Maxwell of Sallee Horse Vans and Bethlehem Farms’ Sandra White. (Click here to learn more about the Blue Grass Farms Chaplaincy.)
“Back in the early days, we’d hired a part-time administrator and a part-time chaplain to get this kicked off,” recalled David Foley, a past president and current treasurer of the chaplaincy. “We used to meet several times a month the first few years trying to get the ministry going. Both of these positions ended up going full-time and we were covering a lot of ground; however, fundraising was always a challenge. Then, along came Mary–as the song goes. She came to us initially as a volunteer a few years back, began participating and then inquired about setting up a Ladies Guild to assist the chaplaincy with additional needs and to help with fundraising. She was ‘on fire’ for this ministry, back then and remains so today.”
When the chaplaincy’s original executive director left Central Kentucky and resigned her position, Lee-Butte was working virtually full-time as a volunteer. The executive director job was offered to her, and she stepped in to help the organization through a transition without missing a step. It’s grown under her leadership and expanded its outreach to the community in many ways. Lee-Butte is one of three employees, along with the chaplain Claudio Toro and executive assistant Deanna Widaman.
“On a day to day basis, we are able to take care of any emergency needs the workers have,” Lee-Butte said, “whether it’s physical, spiritual, financial or medical. It’s a one-stop resource center.”
The chaplaincy, which was previously affiliated with the Racetrack Chaplaincy of America but ended its ties with that national organization earlier this year, opened an Enrichment Center at its Lexington office in the last year. The center is used as a classroom, where courses on safety and English as a second language are taught. The center will be used this summer for a new children’s reading program, and it also hosts a mentoring program for mothers who either have husbands working on horse farms or themselves are farm employees. A computer lab is being created, thanks to a gift of eight computers from Darley Farm. Classes will be taught to help farm workers develop word processing and basic computer skills that will help them on the job. Lee-Butte hopes to arrange for regularly scheduled medical and dental services to also be available for those in need.
“Our greatest achievement last year by far was opening the Enrichment Center,” said Fritz Widaman of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the chaplaincy’s current president. Its development, Widaman said, would not have been possible without the generosity of many people in the industry.
Lee-Butte echoed Widaman’s sentiments about the widespread support, saying funding comes from all levels of the industry, from wealthy farm owners who make substantial donations to individuals who send in $5 or $10.
“Taylor Made Farm has been phenomenal in their support,” she said, “Beau Lane of the Lane Foundation has supported the chaplaincy for a long time and has been one of our major donors. Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton have been supportive, and so has the Blood-Horse family, especially at Christmastime. Darley has been very supportive, both with funding and with the recent donation of computers.”
The heart and soul of the chaplaincy’s fundraising, however, comes from the Ladies Guild that Lee-Butte helped start.
“The Ladies Guild is a very cohesive, supportive group of women who are cheerleaders for the industry and for each other,” Lee-Butte said. “It raises money, but it’s also an outreach for people who want to be involved in doing something. That’s what drives me; volunteer work is very rewarding.
“We needed a group of ladies to raise funds to do the legwork,” she added. “We all know that women are the ones who will go out there and do the work and set up the fundraisers. I can do a lot, but if I can get a group of women together we can do anything.”
The Ladies Guild’s annual fundraiser, Nags, Bags and Rags, is scheduled for Oct. 1 at Keeneland’s Keene Entertainment Center on the eve of the opening of the fall race meeting. The theme for this year’s event is Racino Grande, which will create a Roaring ‘20s atmosphere, with roulette, a wheel of fortune, raffles, auctions, celebrity dealers, a paddock marketplace and cabaret music.
But the work of the Blue Grass Farms Chaplaincy is far from all fun and games. Lee-Butte has led several memorial services recently, and the chaplaincy offers bereavement and grief counseling for families that have lost loved ones. The chaplaincy works with local funeral homes to seek discounted rates for families that can’t afford funeral costs, and Lee-Butte or chaplaincy volunteers will show up with food and household goods at the home of horse industry families that have suffered a loss.
Just this week, Lee-Butte dealt with the tragic death of a 24-year-old young man from the Ukraine, who was serving as an intern at a local veterinary hospital at the time of his death. His family could not afford to have his remains shipped home, and Lee-Butte quickly raised the necessary funds to help bring some degree of closure to the young man’s grieving parents.
There are many worthy organizations that serve the industry’s human and equine participants, and it’s become increasingly difficult to raise funds during the current challenging economic conditions. But Lee-Butte maintains an incredibly upbeat and optimistic viewpoint.
“We just have to have faith in God,” she said. “I think we’re probably one of the industry’s best-kept secrets, but people call us when they need us. So far we’ve never had to turn any legitimate need away, and that to me is mind boggling.
“I don’t see challenges, but I see opportunity.”
Readers have an opportunity help the Blue Grass Farms Chaplaincy continue its good work. Click here to make a donation.
Liberation Farm celebrates the many horsemen and horsewomen who strive each day to make things better for horses and those who work with them. To learn more about Liberation Farm, click here.
Previous Good News Friday subjects: Father Chris Clay, The Race for Education, Military Appreciation Day at Keeneland, Kentucky Oaks Pink Out for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
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