The horses need your help. Blue Star Equiculture is trying to reach our goal of 1000 Herd Members by August 1, 2011. We currently have over 175 members. With your help, we can achieve our goal of grassroots sustainability. We are asking all our current Herd Members to send an email to everyone on their email list. In that email ask your friends and family to help horses by joining the Herd. In addition to sending an email, we hope that you'll reach out to your friends and family and encourage them in person to join you as Herd Members.

Remember - if we have 1000 Herd Members, the 30 horses at Blue Star Equiculture will have all of their routine needs - hay, grain, farrier, dental, regular vet work such as vaccinations and worming - taken care of by the Herd every month.

Below is a sample email that you can copy and paste into your email. Personalize this email with your experience at Blue Star Equiculture.

SAMPLE EMAIL:

Hi,

I just wanted to drop you a note about this horse rescue I support, Blue Star Equiculture (www.equiculture.org), and the great program they have to support their herd of 30 rescued and retired working horses.  It’s called “Join the Herd” and I’m asking you to Join the Herd with me! Blue Star's goal with your help is to have 1,000 JTH members by August 1.

For as little as $10 / month, you can Join the Herd.  That 34 cents per day recurring donation goes a long way to supporting the day-to-day needs of the horses at  Blue Star Equiculture. I know my $10 per month is 100% spent for hay, feed and veterinary care for the horses there’s truly no easier way to support horses in need.  It really is the least I can do for these magnificent animals.  I have been so impressed with the quality of care the horses get at Blue Star, and more Herd Members would mean more horses could be helped.

Blue Star Equiculture believes that a community can take care of its homeless horses.  This grassroots movement to get lots of small donors has created an amazing program to care for the horses. In Blue Star Equiculture's continuing development they just signed an affiliation agreement with UMass-Amherst, were designated the official retirement home for the carriage horses of New York City and have established a horse riding lessons program for adults and children. I hope you’ll join me as a Herd Member and help my equine friends at Blue Star.

Find out more and Join the Herd here: http://www.equiculture.org/join-the-herd.aspx Be sure to spread the word as well! We need all the Herd Members we can get for the horses.

The horses and I thank you!

[Your Name Here]

P.S. [Insert a small personal anecdote here, like “My favorite horse at Blue Star is Peggy.  She’s too cute, despite having a rough start to life!  Read more about her here: http://www.equiculture.org/peggy.aspx” or “I was at the farm last weekend enjoying my Herd Member benefits – Cupcake loved getting groomed!”]

To send this email to all or a select group your friends in your email contact list refer to the help section of your email program. Look for the help subject "Sending email to multiple contacts". In most email programs this is a very easy task. For example here's how it's done with Gmail:

It's easy to send one message to many to people at once.

From the Contact Manager:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Click Contacts.
3. Select all the contacts you'd like to send to.
4. Click Email in the group details pane.

From the Compose window:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Click Compose.
3. In the To: field, separate individual addresses or auto-complete suggestions with commas.
4. Compose your mail.

Thank you for making a difference for America's horses!  We could not care for BSE's horses without the help of Herd Members!