Marc's Big Day

Marc has been trying to decide what he wants to do when he finishes school. He knows he wants to work with animals. He'd like to be a farmer, but he'd also like to work with other children who have special needs. We were brainstorming one day and the subject of hippotherapy came up. (For those of you who don't know, hippotherapy is horseback riding as a therapy for people with special needs.) Marc started asking a lot of questions and was very interested in learning more.

Several years ago the 2 eldest were taking French lessons from a retired school teacher. Her grandniece (who lived next door) was studying hippotherapy. It was the first time I had heard of it, but over the months, and eventually years, we'd hear about how Anneliese was doing and eventually how she had graduated and was living on a farm just down the road.

Fast forward to now...Marc wanted to learn more about hippotherapy. We remembered Anneliese and started researching. We got her phone # and then looked at the website. We talked to Marc's service coordinator and he arranged funding for Marc to take lessons. Today was Marc's first lesson.

Here Marc is grooming Darcy, a beautiful quarter horse.

And here he is making one of his first trips around the riding area. He did great and is looking forward to next week's lesson.

I didn't get many other pictures of the facility that came out clear because of the lighting, but this will give you an idea of how a young woman's dream of helping people with special needs with her horses has grown into a reality. A beautiful new barn and riding area with equally beautiful and gentle horses. What a blessing!