Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi, my name's Patty Hoppel, equine specialist at Rising Hope and I'm Andrea Jarrett, executive
director at Rising Hope. We decided to start a therapeutic program; being in education,
I noticed that there weren't a lot of activities for my students, the multi-handicapped, the
special needs, to do either after school or in the summertime, and so I wanted to provide
something for the families, to give them more of a recreational along with an educationally-based
therapy. I've talked to a lot of families; they are very interested in coming. They were
looking forward to having something special for their child to do. You know, not all of
them can play soccer, basketball, but they can all ride a horse.
My name is Cindy Caldwell, and I bring my daughter Camden DuVall down to Rising Hope. Camden
has Down Syndrome, she is 6 years old, and she attends Crestview Elementary School. She
is in Kindergarten. She is enjoying the program; it is very beneficial to her, they work with
her IEP, with her speech more than anything. She enjoys the horses. She looks forward to
coming every week.
Hi, I'm Kathy and I'm at Rising Hope Therapeutic Riding Center and I have two little ones,
Cory who is 8 YEARS old and Shimaya who is 8 also.
Go faster, Blackjack!
Both of them have some issues and learning difficulties and they both love horses, and
so we started coming out here and they absolutely love it. I would just recommend it for anybody.
Corey, especially, is a horse lover and he just loves doing everything with the horses.
Shimaya was a little fearful at first, but now she is getting comfortable. First she
told me she wasn't going to ride; she was going to just brush horses, and she's already up
and at it and riding, and it's just something they look forward to. And it incorporates
all of their therapies; the speech, the occupational therapy, the physical therapy, all at one
time which while they're having fun riding horses I don't think they realize how it's
helping them therapeutically. So it's just great and we love it here. We'd recommend
it to anyone.
I'd say inspiration came from my mom's passion for horses and kids. She's had it since I
was young. The first time I met Andrea I realized that she had that same passion for the horses
and for the kids, and I saw all of them take the kids through a session. I knew it was
something special. I knew it was special for the kids, it's a great way for horses
to retire peacefully, and it makes them still be important in the kids' lives. And I don't
even know if they realize it or not, but the importance that they have in the kids' lives
after riding them and after taking ownership in that horse; helping to saddle them, brush
them, feed them, just the ownership that the kids have and the comradery of the horses
is just amazing.
Well Derek and I went to High School together and we're pretty close, and he also played
with me at the University of Cincinnati and we were talking one day about what he wanted to do to give
back to the community. We have always talked about it; he's known since he went to the
NFL that that's something important and something he wanted to shoot for.
The community has been very receptive to everything that I've told them about Rising Hope. We
have many local businesses involved. They know that it's a need, they know the need
is there, especially in our area. There's not a lot of programs for kids, especially with
kids with developmental disabilities for them to go. And they can get
occupational therapy, speech therapy, equine therapy on horses, and they also get to have
the comradery with the horse.
They are summer-months only because the facility doesn't allow them to work in the winter.
We have some issues with the parking. It gets a little muddy on the farm during the winter
and also the facility is not really big enough or setup to provide heating in the winter,
so we'd really like to move them into a larger facility more set up for their needs. We actually
have a property in mind and I'm working to raise money to pay for the remodel of
the facility. The golf outing and gala is going to help tremendously and the local businessmen that I
have gotten involved in our goal so we can raise enough money to do the rehab. We should
hopefully be able to move in this fall.
Ivy loves it, that's a great benefit to me. She has something that is just for her. She's not
involved in any other sports or anything else, so she takes more pride in coming out and
getting on the horse, taking care of the horse, learning how to ride and work through all
of the different therapies and things that she does. She loves feeding carrots at the
end to the horse. And she goes home and tells other family members about her experience,
so this is something she has that she can call her own, take pride in, and be proud
of. So when I see her happy, it really warms my heart. She's making relationships with
other people, she's learning at the same time, it provides a physical benefit; so there is
a lot of positives in coming out.
Well it's a great place; if anybody ever wants to come out and check it out for themselves
and see the impact that it's having in these children's lives and the impact that it's
having on the horses' lives, I'd love for you guys to see the passion that goes into
Rising Hope and into helping these kids. And with passion like that, there's no way to
fail.
Closed Captioning transcribed by David Mouse.