Grateful for Teen Volunteers

Christine helping out in the barn

There are many elements of serving as the Volunteer Coordinator at High Hopes Therapeutic Riding that I love.  Each day, I get to be witness to volunteers giving their time, energy, and effort to others.  Along with Jeanna Pellino, Volunteer Manager, I get to be part of making the phone calls and setting the schedule and providing the training that make that happen.  I know that the staff at High Hopes feels grateful for each and every minute that volunteers spend driving to the facility, working here, and helping with special events.  Not to mention the gratitude that many participants frequently express towards those volunteers who make it possible for them to ride, drive, and just be with horses each week. 

Today I want to give a special nod to the teen volunteers who come to High Hopes each week and give their time and energy.  Last Saturday, I walked through the barn a few times and just took note of the industry happening there.  Volunteers, most of them teenagers, were grooming horses, cleaning stalls, tossing hay, helping to prepare horses for class, and sweeping.  All with diligence and strict adherence to the safety rules, NARHA standards, and High Hopes policies they've been asked to follow.  There are many smiles, lots of laughing and hard work, and an absence of any kind of discipline problems or negative behaviors.  As a person who has worked with teens and young adults in various contexts over the past ten years, I am well aware of how special the young volunteers at High Hopes are, and how lucky we are to have them.

Sometimes, there's also an interesting dynamic that sometimes takes place between riders and their teenage sidewalkers.  At times, teen volunteers can motivate youth participants in a different way than adult volunteers can - call it positive peer pressure! 

No one who comes to visit High Hopes on a Saturday could have any doubt that the future of our society is in great, compassionate, hard-working, generous hands.  These teens prove that each and every week.



Will assisting a rider on the Sensory Trail



I also want to say thank you to the parents who provide transportation, teach their teens about honoring weekly commitments, and help set up realistic schedules and goals.  During an economic time when it is very difficult for teens to find part-time employment (one article claims that at 26% teen unemployment was at an all-time high this past summer and that 4 million less teens were working than would have been at the same time in the year 2000), volunteering is an excellent way for teens to learn work ethic, commitment, and good people skills.  While High Hopes most definitely benefits from our teenage volunteers' time and effort, we hope that they are also aware of the way that their work can influence them as people. 

Finally, I want to express gratitude to High Hopes as an organization, other staff members, Team Captains and seasoned adult volunteers who help provide such a positive environment for teens to learn and grow in their volunteer roles.  When I see our teens hard at work, it really brings home to me the potential for experiential and service-based learning to help teens grow as people and develop a sense of self and responsibility, not to mention tolerance for diversity and a broader sense of humanity.  The environment at High Hopes - structured but creative, authentic and nurturing - definitely fosters learning and makes this a positive place for teens to be and serve.

So... to all our volunteers, and especially our teens, thank you, thank you, thank you.  We hope you and your families and friends and animals enjoyed a peaceful and happy Thanksgiving!  (And remember, classes resume on Monday...)

~Karen Pfeil
Volunteer Coordinator/ Instructor

Thanksgiving

Fall Day at High Hopes

This week staff member Renya Craig shares her thoughts on the season...

What an amazing season of brilliant foliage it has been, reminding me just how much I enjoy Connecticut in Autumn time... November is suddenly here, Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and I would like to take this blogging opportunity to give thanks to ALL the High Hopes community for blessing my days at work with an abundance of grateful moments.  Because of you, it’s an honor and pleasure to be an employee here.

Seasoned Googlers and NEW Googlers (like me!), there’s always a whole lot to be thankful for… and I wonder…. In the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, do you have any grateful tidbits to share with the High Hopes Family?

Conference Day 1

Holly and Sarah at the Hartford airport.

Karen reporting from Denver...

I've always loved to travel.  Not tour, necessarily (museums, not really my thing, tourist attractions like Disney World, even less so), but to travel.  Go somewhere different, see a new city, drink coffee and people watch, gain an understanding of a new people, culture, or place.

Of course, for much of my life, this love of going places has been in pretty much direct conflict with my other love - horses.  There's almost nothing that can tie you down faster than a 1,000+ pound animal with daily care needs that approximate that of your average toddler. 

So, when I made the decision to enter the therapeutic riding field, I believed it would probably be at the cost of the travel and freedom I so enjoy.

Luckily, life is almost never what you expect it will be.  Since completing NARHA certification, I seem to find more and more opportunities to go places and also great role models who balance love and commitment to horses with a desire to travel to other places and centers.  Not to mention the happy fact that High Hopes is a multi-cultural place with regular visitors from all over the world.

I'm extremely grateful to the management at High Hopes for sending us to Denver for the NARHA National Conference (not only because Denver is a fun, funky, clean city with mountains in the background and a southwestern flair).  Today, I met therapeutic riding instructors from Washington, Mississippi, Colorado.  I heard about their students, their horses, and the challenges they face in the field everyday.  (It does bring home how blessed we are at High Hopes in so many ways, and as a relative newcomer, it emphasizes for me the gratitude I owe to those who have built the program into what it is today.) 

I also attended three presentations.  One about horse care and maintenance; one about natural horsemanship; and a third about the benefits of therapeutic riding for children on the autism spectrum.  They were all interesting, but it was this last one that made the deepest impression on me.  Several researchers from Texas Tech, among them today's presenters Tangi Arant and Heather Hernandez, did a small scale study to try to measure the affects of horseback riding on young children (age 2 - 8) with an autism diagnosis.  Their study was conducted using strong research methods, and the teaching methods they used to work with the children were many of the same teaching strategies and activities that we use at High Hopes everyday.  It was extremely validating to see that their study revealed measurable benefits to the children (an increase in eye contact, vocalization, and positive social behaviors and a decrease in behaviors such as stimming).  Their research generated dozens of questions and theories from the audience - evidence to me that the therapeutic riding field is ready and eager for this kind of research and discovery.

After the conference, we spent time wandering downtown Denver (checking out everything from kitchy Colorado tourist shops to high-end engagement rings) and chatting... lots and lots of chatting. 

Thanks for reading and I will try to update again tomorrow.  Internet access at the hotel isn't what I hoped, but I will do my best!

-Karen Pfeil