About the Nonprofit
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Our mission is to provide hope and healing to Veterans, children, and adults with cognitive, physical and emotional challenges through the remarkable connection with horses.
Our vision is to provide an all-encompassing horsemanship program that feels like owning your own horse and being part of a barn family where a personalized experience will allow for the greatest opportunities for growth and healing.
LHET addresses several important issues in our society today. Veterans and people with disabilities often need added support to be successful members of society. Living Hope Equine Therapy’s boutique style of services tailor lessons to the unique needs of the client to improve their quality of life. Providing small group lessons, opportunities for social enrichment at group gatherings, and striving for a welcoming environment helps provide a safe place for social growth and development for clients and their families.
Our clients come to us with a variety of diagnoses including, but not limited to Autism, Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, Down Syndrome, Trauma, Stroke, Genetic Disorders, Hearing and Speech Impairment, Amputation and Behavioral Disorders. They come to us often having tried traditional therapies unsuccessfully. They discover that the bond between horses and humans helps to heal and provides an outlet to deal with the stresses that are often associated with our challenged communities.
Our clients often struggle with both physical and emotional challenges. Our in-depth horsemanship program helps them build physical strength, improve fine motor skills, build confidence, and gain problem solving skills. In addition, they improve their communication and social skills while at the same time experiencing a positive outlet for anger, anxiety, and depression.
We have 5 active programs to serve the community:
1. Weekly horsemanship lessons that include groundwork, horse care, and riding. We offer both private and group lessons that are a minimum of an hour in length. Riders benefit by learning responsibility, empathy problem solving skills, social skills, confidence building skills, and are allowed ample time to bond with their equine partner to have an outlet for stress, anger, and anxiety, and PTSD.
2. Our Veteran’s Program is specialized and offered at no cost. We offer a weekly group horsemanship lesson as well as a group lunch. This unique program allows veterans a safe place to fellowship and help each other heal and build healthy relationships. Our veterans are also encouraged to volunteer and help our riders with disabilities, and we have seen incredible bonds develop through this process.
3. Our Show Team and Show Program allows all our riders the opportunity to compete in local and national level horse shows. We believe goal setting is key to the development of our riders and horse shows are an excellent opportunity to overcome obstacles, achieve dreams, and build lifelong relationships from the experience of being a part of a competitive team. Many of our clients are unable to participate in sports and the opportunity to join a team has been lifechanging for them and their families.
4. Our Caregiver’s Program addresses the need for healing in families with special needs loved ones. This program provides horsemanship instruction as well as opportunities for fellowship and education through organized events. To date our Caregiver’s have participated in a horse show with their special needs riders, offered a CPR class for certification, and several social outings.
5. We offer a Volunteer Program that teaches participants how to use horses to help our riders and encourages them to form lasting relationships with participants. To date we have 25 active volunteers at LHET.
