"AND THAT'S A WRAP!: A YEAR IN REVIEW"
Welcome back loyal Hands and Hearts for Horses readers! It’s me your friendly, mysterious “NEIGH”borhood horse blogger back with another entry of my blog!
Blog Reminders
Each week in my blog there will be one hidden clue to my identity, so make sure you tune in and read my blog every week for another clue! REMEMBER, if you think you know which horse I am, shoot us a message or email Stephanie at stephanie@handsandheartsforhorses.com ! Don’t spoil the mystery for our other followers by posting your guess publicly! Can you piece together the clues and figure out which horse I am? Because I’ll never tell, well not until enough of you have guessed my secret! Once enough correct guesses have come in, I’ll post a summary of the clues that should have led you to guess my identity and we will do a big reveal!
The first person to guess my identity correctly will win a Hands and Hearts for Horses sticker and a piece of pretty Hands and Hearts for Horses themed jewelry created by our very own boss lady (or as the humans call her executive director) Susie’s own mom! So, tune in for those clues and get those guesses in! One guess per person, per week please!
I have included links to my past blogs in case you missed them so that you can look for the clues to my identity!
Week 1: https://handsandheartsforhorses.com/neighborhood-horse-blogger/2024-4-22-we-love-our-volunteers
Week 2: https://handsandheartsforhorses.com/neighborhood-horse-blogger/2024-4-29-its-gonna-be-may-f4l32
Sensory Trail Adventures!
Our participants and volunteers love going out on the trail! Here we can see Teena and Jack the goat having a fun visit with one of our school group riders!
A YEAR IN REVIEW
Well readers, we have finally made it to our last week of Spring Session! Our Fall Session 2023 and Spring Session 2024 have been HUGE for us, and we horses have seen SO many big changes!
As many of you readers may know our year at Hands and Hearts for Horses is split into three main components. Our Fall Session runs from September through mid-December, our Spring Session runs from January through mid-May, and then we host summer camps June-July! Then we close in August due to the extreme heat because us horses and the humans cannot do too much activity in those conditions!
This year I have seen all sorts of things happening at the barn! Two new humans got certified as Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructors, Stephanie Mulherin and Tiffany Nelsen! Bree Carter joined our staff as Barn Assistant. We got a new volunteer coordinator, Jennifer Sibilia and Stephanie Mulherin became the Social Media and Marketing Coordinator! We started new partnerships with The Apalachee Center, The Vashti Center, and The Treehouse Children’s Advocacy Center. And CTRI Devyn Barrett also earned her Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning Certification!
FOUR of our volunteers were recognized at Hands on Thomas County’s Cheers for Volunteers event Kaiden Pratt, Ashley White, Luke Simpson, and Joslin Prescott! Kaiden even received an honorable mention and a Gold Presidential Service Award! Our Sensory trail gained some musical enhancements as well!
Kaiden Received the Gold President’s Volunteer Service Award!
As well as an Honorable Mention for the Student Category from Hands on Thomas County for her tremendous contributions to Hands and Hearts for Horses!
We also welcomed several new horses to our herd this year which has really helped us horses out! We welcomed Neve, Sally, Dakota, Jimmy, and Loretta! We love having horses to help us with the work load and having a solid team of horses with different types of movement and weight limits is extremely important for our program! For instance I have a very SMOOTH gait!
Of course, one super exciting new thing this year was that we horses have taken over the Hands and Hearts for Horses blog! I personally think this has made our blog much more fun and interesting!!
Luke riding newcomer Neve!
You can help us feed old and new herd members hay all year long by donating to or sharing our May Hay Fundraiser to help keep us healthy and strong by going to: https://paypal.com/donate/?campaign_id=KAMTN52ZL2CWL&source=url
We witnessed an amazing amount of growth in the number of participants we served this year. We provided lessons to 300 students from 34 special education classes from surrounding counties which was amazing! We also started a ground-work based program for children served by The Vashti Center and for participants of the Thomas-Grady Service Center. Our list of individual and group lessons has also expanded significantly!
Although this session may be coming to a close, we still have a LOT of work to accomplish! We will be getting ready for Summer Camps to start up in June. Most importantly, our May Hay Fundraiser is still going! We are nearly half way through the month, and have raised $5600 of our $25,000 goal as of today! That means we still have nearly 4/5 of our goal left to raise! YOU can help us continue to grow and provide the best care for me and my fellow horses, which in turn allows us to provide the best services possible for our participants! You can help support us this May and this year by donating or sharing our fundraiser NOW! Remember, just $12 buys one bale of peanut hay or two bales of coastal hay!
Donations can be made multiple ways!
1) Go to: https://paypal.com/donate/?campaign_id=KAMTN52ZL2CWL&source=url
2) Our Facebook Fundraiser at our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donate/1172764943903370/?fundraiser_source=external_url
3) Our Instagram Fundraiser on our Instagram: @handsandheartsforhorses
4) On our Venmo: @handsandheartsforhorses
We cannot reach our goal without the help of our community!
Wow Hands and Hearts for Horses fans, what a year!!! This year has FLOWN by! We just have this one week of lessons left and then our Rodeo on May 18th to close it out with a bang!
‘Til next time!
XOXO Your Friendly “NEIGH”borhood Horse Blogger