I have written before about being a “Good seer and good sayer” so here goes. My wonderful 14 year old Granddaughter was volunteering (pre-covid) with a most fascinating and quite frankly Magic program in Western North Carolina where she lives. The program is called “HEART OF HORSE SENSE’. The Founder and Executive Director is Shannon Knapp.
From their web site; “Heart of Horse Sense was initially founded to support quality, professional trauma-informed equine therapy services for Veterans, First Responders, At-Risk Youth & their families. Our mission has expanded now to include all survivors of trauma. Our vision is that every trauma survivor has access to counseling and learning with horses”.
In 2013 Shannon began with a program for socially challenged youth from a local public housing complex. With that first group her comment was “The staff of Children First and Horse Sense of the Carolinas were all crying at the bright, kind eyes of the kids in contact with the horses,” says Knapp. “Kids the staff had never seen smile before were beaming on horseback on a beautiful summer day. That was my personal moment of, ‘We must keep doing this.’”
She then partnered with Jake, a Marine Corps veteran who was suffering from Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). To date the program has helped over 2000 Vets deal with various challenges.
Even more amazing is the horses in the program are rescue animals, the training they receive is unique in that it is “Natural Horsemanship” which results in “a kinder and gentler cowboy” to develop a rapport with horses. It prevents the oft used training by abusive methods of these wonderful and majestic animals. This, combined with the equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning for some of the most vulnerable among us and the program is successful due to the myriad volunteers, my Granddaughter included, seems to me to be the epitome of a value added program. My Grandchildren are constantly showing me a path to Hope for the future. the Heart of Horse Sense web site is https://www.heartofhorsesense.org/
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