Wild for Sale

Dear Friends,

The Perfect Storm of circumstances, some predictable and some personal, has forced us to make a very difficult decision. We have made the The Wild available for sale. If no buyer is found by February’s end, we will close.

When we opened The Wild in 2005, we had a most romantic vision for what it would be. After more than four years, the reality is that it became more than we had ever dreamed and one of our most personally gratifying experiences yet.

Together, with you, we have:

--Read more than 1500 stories together
--Hatched 7 healthy baby chicks
--Collected and delivered enough peanut butter and jelly to Horizon House homeless shelter to make 1800 sandwiches for people in need
--Completed so many craft projects that we stopped counting around 10,000
--Eaten 1.35 Dum Dums for every completed craft project
--Through OLG and St. Paul’s Church, donated thousands of books to children in Appalachia, many of whom had never owned a book of their own
--Graduated more than 120 students from ukulele classes
--Given $30,000 in discounts to local teachers and schools
--Learned to knit, paint, sculpt, needle felt, cook, properly brush our teeth, safely approach dogs, write stories and poetry
--Helped grow the collection of library books at New Britton Elementary in memory of Wild Child Katie McGee who lost her battle with leukemia in July of ’08 at the age of 9.
--Displayed the art of at least 200 young artists
--Decorated more than 600 cookies and 360 eggs, made a home for fairies, tutus for dancing, pirate chests for burying and one of the coolest trash art robots ever
--Enjoyed the company of visiting snakes, trained dogs, potbellied pigs and dancing chickens—all of whom were almost as fabulous as the humans who shared them with us
--Raised more than $20,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to help find a cure for CF, in hopes of giving 30,000 kids across the country a chance at a future
--Met countless authors and illustrators
--Kicked up our heels for the Breaking of Dawn, the Dog Days, the Deathly Hallows, Five Ancestors, Rattlesnake Season, The End, The Last Olympian and the Son of Promise
--And, perhaps most importantly, taught one another by sharing our differences

Thank you for buying a book from us when you could have gotten it someplace else. Thank you for your stories and your friendship, for your loyalty and support. We have taken it all in and have been honored to be part of your lives during the best and worst of times.

There are a number of you who deserve a personal thank you. For fear of leaving out a name, if you are an artist, author, teacher, musician, mom, dad, firefighter, librarian, dentist, veterinarian, grandma, grandpa, scout leader, historian, 4-Her, chef, dinosaur hunter, herpetologist, farmer or friend who has taken the time to share your passion or your craft with our young Wild kids, please accept our sincerest thanks. To our employees, all three of you, you have become and will always be considered family.

Our plan was to leave the world a better place when we finished than it was when we started. Together, we did just that.

With Sincere Gratitude,

Jane, Ernie and Fritz Mills
The Wild
884 Logan Street
Noblesville, IN 46060