Fall Changes

Fall…a time of transition and change… has arrived.  Stuffy nights have given way to chilly ones and humid mornings have changed to crisp ones.  The leaves are beginning to change color and drift to the ground.  It is also a time of change and transition for me.  As the new Program Director I take the “reins” of the High Hopes Fall session for the first time.   Born and raised on Cape Cod, I do have Yankee roots, but for 13 years have grown accustomed to the warm weather in North Carolina, where a temperature of 75 brings out the sweaters!  Back in New England, I realize, I love the fall and the changes it brings.  Leaving a therapeutic riding program where I have been involved for 13 years and been Program Director for the past eight has been an emotional experience for me.  I wondered and worried about the riders I left behind, the horses I left behind and the family of staff and volunteers I left behind.  Would I ever find the same connection?  Would they be ok without me?  Will I find a new family?  At High Hopes, the answer to all of these questions has shown itself to be a resounding yes!

Smokey



Like many of us, my initial interest in therapeutic riding came from a love of the horse.  As I have worked with the High Hopes herd, each member is earning my respect, trust and love through their interaction with our participants.  Today, Greco stood, asleep, on the cross ties as 4 equine learning students learned about wraps and boots.  He was patient and forgiving as he was wrapped, unwrapped, booted and unbooted by learning hands.  I also saw Cassidy help a rider canter independently, a huge accomplishment!  My heart never skipped a beat as I saw the understanding in his eye.  Petra has amazed me with her grounded approach to each rider.  Nervous, excited, loud or unbalanced, Petra seems proud to carry each of her riders.  Yesterday a young girl arrived at the farm, home schooled all of her life and fearful of new situations.  She was nervous until I brought Smokey into the lounge.  After meeting with Smokey in her comfort zone she was able to lead him to his paddock – thank you, Smokey!  During our annual Hoedown, Major was chosen as a mount for the participant drill team.  Initially he seemed worried about the exciting surroundings but once the participant mounted his demeanor changed and he knew he had a job to do.  The stories of how each High Hopes equine is winning my heart go on and on.

Major proudly carries Danielle at the High Hopes Hoedown, with Liz leading.

At the core of High Hopes are the participants – so many to meet, so many stories to understand and appreciate.  It has been a joy to hear the history of High Hopes from participants and parents who have been a part of High Hopes since its humble beginnings.  I had the pleasure of seeing a mother seeking a meaningful activity for her son with autism finding his one true outlet for the first time.  I have had the experience of having riders greet me by name and request that I watch them trot in their lesson that day.  After the drill performance at the Hoedown, I shared in the emotion of a participant’s mother as she cried in awe at the accomplishments of her daughter.  And just today I helped a nervous young man mount a horse for the first time and heard him say the word “awesome” through the entire ride.  Lives are touched by horses everywhere!

Do I still miss where I was and my North Carolina “family”?  Of course! But I am building relationships with a new family here at High Hopes.  Time brings change and growth like the seasons… and aren’t the fall colors beautiful!

~ Liz Adams, Program Director





Monday Morning after the Hoedown

It's 9:30 Monday morning, two days after the 2^nd Annual High Hopes Hoedown and the beginning of a new fall semester.  Walking to work today it’s hard to imagine that nearly 500 people were here on Saturday for games, music and food.  The only giveaway is the port-a-potties that have been moved to the far edge of the parking lot!   

The first few days after an event are always a little unnerving and strange for me.  The adrenaline that carried me through the last week has left.  Mentally, I’m a little drained but I still have to wrap up the loose ends and help Linda prepare the final $$ tally, because everybody wants to know how we did dollar wise.  I feel pretty confident that we have met our budget goal, but for me that will be less than satisfactory as I always strive to exceed that goal.  Fundraising these days is a whole new scenario and I’m still adjusting.  

The other remaining Hoedown task to be performed is one that I look on with pleasure, but struggle to make time for and that is to thank the army of volunteers who helped pull this event off.  I know that this event wouldn’t have happened without their commitment of time and talent and that needs to be acknowledged in a very personal way.  I honestly hate it when someone introduces me and says “Sara is in charge of this event and makes it all happen.” That is so untrue!!  What I do is maintain a checklist and make sure somebody else does all the hard work!!  To be honest working with volunteers is the only way I could perform my job and I have learned to rely on them more and more.  Thank God, High Hopes has the most amazing and committed volunteers! 

As I write this blog, an email message pops up on my computer from our event Co-Chairs Deb Welles & Jeff Ridgway, reminding me that we need to schedule a wrap up meeting in the next week or so.  Next I take a phone call from our Development Committee Chair, John Catlett and we spend a few moments reviewing the Hoedown and then move on to the next items in our Development calendar – setting up a marketing task force, meeting with key committee members on the Annual Appeal and getting invitations out to a Leadership reception for donors to be held in October at the Cooley Gallery.  Volunteer extraordinaire Jim Lewis walks in with some paperwork from the Hoedown and Patty Ganey calls to talk about a upcoming meeting for Concert in the Barn.  I look forward to 2:00 today when I get to be a volunteer and lead a horse.  Then it’s on to the next event!!

Tuesday morning:  Yippee, just found out that the Hoedown exceeded its budgetary expectations!  Great start to our fundraising year and today I am smiling!" 
~Sara Qua/ Director of Development

Getting Started

As fall semester fast approaches, our first installment touches on the feeling of "getting started," being new in a role or place.  Told from the perspective of Karen Pfeil, Volunteer Coordinator.

Late summer... early fall... it's the season for Volunteer Orientations & Trainings.  We have four over the next month and a half, with over 50 potential new volunteers already scheduled to attend.  As always, preparing for a training involves lots of organization - horses, paperwork, revision after revision of how to best execute our presentation.  Jeanna and I want new volunteers to have the best possible experience and the best possible preparation for their volunteer roles.  And we know that starting something new can be both exciting and scary.

I've been the Volunteer Coordinator and an instructor at High Hopes Therapeutic Riding for just over six months now, and some of the newness is wearing off (though it's still, fairly often, exciting and scary in a variety of ways).  My involvement with High Hopes goes back two years further, when I first attended a Volunteer Orientation & Training myself - and I do remember how scary that was.

In fact, the day I came to Orientation, I was terrified. It wasn't that I lacked horse experience (I'd owned horses for years) or experience with special needs populations (I was a teacher). It's just that it's hard to be new in a place that you hope will be important to you, especially when the place is big and impressive. I was also at a difficult place in my life - just turned 30, divorced, discouraged with many of my personal and professional choices. The divorce, two years before, was a traumatic one (is there any other kind?) and there was part of me that thought I'd never heal. I did stuff - worked, dated, walked down the aisle in friends' weddings - but I felt like it didn't mean anything, or worse, like I didn't mean anything.

The training must have given me a sense of purpose because two weeks later I found myself leading therapy horses in classes at High Hopes.  In the first class, I led Petra for some of Kitty's Mile Creek kids, who were adorable and thrilled to be on horseback for the first time.  At the end of class, one of the boys dismounted from Petra and stayed to pat her shoulder.  While the rider and his sidewalker stood near her neck, Petra happened to shake her head at a fly.  And when that ample Fjord-y forelock shook away from her face, the little rider gasped: "Look," he said, pointing, amazement all over his face, "She has eyes!" I will never forget the sweetness of his surprise, the happiness of sharing that moment with him.

My next class was a little more challenging.  I was leading for a more independent rider - a girl about eight who didn't have a sidewalker.  The horse was Filly, an Arabian mare who was nearing the end of her long career at High Hopes.  The rider was nervous and kind of cantankerous.  "I have a headache," she complained, and I remember considering how/when/if I should pass that info onto the instructor.  Everything was so new.

Soon, however, my little rider was distracted by her instructor's direction: "At F ask Filly to T-ROTT!" (It's amazing how trotting cures headaches.)

But then our next problem began.  The rider couldn't get Filly to trot.  Neither could I.  The mare was not having it. 

"Eyes up!" called another instructor who had popped into the ring.  "Look where you're going and don't pull on her." (I realized the instructor was talking to me, not the rider.)  "Let Filly do her job - she knows it!"  Great, I remember thinking: 10+ years of horse ownership, 6 years of Pony Club, and a brief stint as an equine science major and apparently I can't even get out of the way to let an aging therapy horse do her job. Ugh.

When I left High Hopes that day, I wasn't sure how I felt about being a volunteer.  It was more challenging than I expected.  I remember driving north, towards home in Rhode Island, and looking, as I drove, at the pale moon already hanging in a still-lit sky, the way it often does in late summer.  I remember thinking to myself, "This was the first time in two years I've enjoyed spending time with kids like that.  The first time in five that I really smell like a barn."  I took a deep breath of that hay/fly-spray/horse smell.  Just then, I remembered, faintly, who I was.

That's what being a volunteer at High Hopes meant to me. Over time, this place has become part of my life in many new ways, but I still remember what a unique experience those early months of volunteering were.  Sometimes other volunteers share stories with me that echo these claims to finding deep personal meaning through the act of helping others.  For other volunteers, it is most pointedly about the chance to "BE with horses." 

So, when a few High Hopes staff members decided to start a blog, I wanted to share my own story, thinking it might invite or inspire others (participants, volunteers, staff, members of the larger community) to share what this place has meant to you over the time you've been here.  I hope you'll comment below, or ask questions if you have them.  Is there something you've always wondered about High Hopes? This blog is a place to post your questions.  Is there a story or an insight you've wanted to share?  Please do so by commenting below.  (Kindly remember not to name participants in the interest of protecting confidentiality.)  I hope you'll help us start a dialogue here that reaches out to a larger community of people whose lives have been influenced by their involvement at High Hopes.

Thanks! Welcome to the High Hopes blog!  I look forward to sharing stories with all of you.

~ Karen Pfeil, Instructor/ Volunteer Coordinator