Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to the lifestyle PT wellness spotlight. Our goal is to connect you with local businesses and to assist you in living your best life. Now, introducing your host, Dr. Karen Chile,
Speaker 2 00:00:22 I wanna welcome everyone to the show today. I am speaking today with, uh, Dr. Wendy, Wendy Feld. She is a doctor of chiropractic medicine and has also started viability therapeutic writing. So Wendy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 00:00:38 Well, thank you. And thank you so much for having me and allowing us to share our mission with our community.
Speaker 2 00:00:44 Oh, it's our pleasure. I, we, we've got a good topic to talk about today. Uh, before we get into talking more about, um, rideability and therapeutic writing, I'd like for you to, to share a little bit more about yourself.
Speaker 3 00:00:56 Sure. Um, well, I am, like you said, I am a doctor of chiropractic, but, um, my path changed, um, when I decided to become a certified therapeutic instructor from the time that I was probably four years old or able to talk and walk and do anything, I saw a horse. I absolutely lost my mind, had to touch it, feel it, smell it. We lived in an apartment building in the city and I wasn't even allowed a cat. Um, so nobody really understood my desire and love for these beautiful majestic animals, but it came from a very, very young age. By the time I was 14, I was taking like three city buses, be able to brush and groom the horses, um, to be able to learn how to ride on a strip of land on the highway in the city. Um, but I didn't care.
Speaker 3 00:01:40 And, um, I always found opportunities to volunteer, um, any barn that I could work camps so that I could be with the horses. Um, and I was very involved with special Olympics during high school. It was a very, very big part of my high school, um, you know, education and just being a part of that. I loved it and, uh, just always found the opportunities to be around these beautiful, beautiful horses. And then I went to chiropractic school and then we had our daughter and our daughter was born with disabilities. She has physical, um, deformities in her leg. Um, and you know, she wasn't allowed to, I shouldn't say allowed. She wasn't able to, you know, to, to dance and go to tennis and gymnastics. Like all of her friends were, but my passion and our love for horses and our family gave her the ability to be just like everybody else when she was on the horses.
Speaker 3 00:02:30 So when she got on the horse, you didn't know that she had any physical disabilities, you didn't know there were any issues or anything like that. And then over the years I had just, um, you know, horseback riding was a big part of our family. That was our weekends and we just did things and she took lots of lessons and I started showing and competing into my hunter jumper world, um, where I was actually up until I was about 50. I was jumping four foot fences. So horseback riding's always been a big part of us. Um, and one day when I was riding, I was watching this little boy ride and he was basically like laughing from like his toes through his nose. And I just was watching him. And when they took him off, you know, he went into a wheelchair and I know other people have experienced similar things like that by seeing, you know, when you're at a barn and you see a situation like that, and it was almost like somebody smacked me upside the head.
Speaker 3 00:03:21 It was like, hello, we've been telling you, this is what you're supposed to be doing between your love of your horses, your daughter, special Olympics. It was just the, the normal seems progression of where I was being called to do came home. And I told my husband I'm changing careers. And he is like, are you crazy? And I was like, no <laugh>. And, uh, we both started volunteering at a wonderful place in New York called HorseAbility. And they gave me my wings to flying on this, um, forever grateful to Katie and the crew there. Um, and I knew this was what we were supposed to be doing. And then I started getting all my certifications and all of my plans and all of our family started moved down to the Carolina. So it seemed like a very normal progression to move down here and to open up our own center. And we were very, very, very blessed to be able to open it up in Clover. And we fell in love with Clover. I love this town. I love the people, everybody. I mean, they were so welcoming to us, but it's just, there's no place like it, like any place else. So that's how we started when we started, we opened up at the beginning of 2013. So we're gonna be celebrating our 10 years come December, which is really exciting. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:34 Congratulations.
Speaker 3 00:04:34 Yes. Thank you. Thank you. We started with like two horses and a few kids, and we are now we have, uh, 11 horses, three donkeys, a mini, and we're serving approximately 85 students a week now. So it's really exciting to be. That's
Speaker 2 00:04:49 Amazing build it and they will come. Huh?
Speaker 3 00:04:52 I know. It's wonderful. Wonderful.
Speaker 2 00:04:54 That's great. What an unusual path, you don't hear too many people going from the city, uh, to a horse farm <laugh> year. Well, I grew up on a horse farm, you know,
Speaker 3 00:05:03 <laugh> I know I had my little pocket knife undoing the hay barrels today. I said to my friend look at I'm a real farm girl now. And I, I just love it. I just love it. So when I got all my other certifications, um, I got certified through an organization called path, which is the professional association, a therapeutic horsemanship. Um, they're one of the highest level of, um, organizations to get certified, to be a therapeutic instructor, to work with children and adults with special needs. Um, I'm also part of their mentor program where I train, um, other, um, prospective teachers to become certified. Um, and I am the team developer for South Carolina, special Olympics equestrian program. I code develop that with my friend, Nicole and I am one of the team, um, clinicians for North Carolina Orr, special Olympics. So we do a lot here at ride ability to be able to serve this amazing community of special abilities people.
Speaker 2 00:05:58 That's great. Where, where does North Carolina, um, perform their special Olympics?
Speaker 3 00:06:03 Well, we are super excited cuz it's always been Anne Raleigh. Um, but Trium international, um, decided this year they have wanted to take us on. So we are going to Tryon, which I am so excited for. I thought I'd be competing there first myself, but I'm so excited. Our kids are gonna be
Speaker 2 00:06:19 <laugh>. That's great. I know I've driven past it. That's a pretty amazing center
Speaker 3 00:06:22 There. Amazing and well,
Speaker 2 00:06:25 Well thank you for, um, you know, telling us, you know, the path and all that you've taken. So tell us a little bit more about rideability and the facility that you've created.
Speaker 3 00:06:36 Thank you. Um, well rideability is a therapeutic writing center for children and adults with special needs. We don't see, um, anybody else. We only see children and adults with special needs and veterans. Um, we wanted a place that people that had these amazing special abilities can come and have a place. They can call their own a place that they can shine. Um, and when they're working with our therapeutic horses and our, we call 'em our service horses, you know, they are working on balance core strength. They're working on focus, paying attention, completing task and skills. Most of all, feeling proud of themselves, building confidence. And self-esteem, you know, you get on a horse and you tell a 1500 pound animal to go right or left, or you're sitting on them. That's gonna build up who you are as a person and just make you feel so proud of yourself.
Speaker 3 00:07:26 So, you know, our rider, um, they have, um, we have riders with autism down syndrome, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injuries, learning disability, speech, language, D ADHD, you name it, anybody that needs a little extra TLC or needs a little bit more work, um, gets to work with us in our beautiful horses. Um, so we, you know, we have obstacles that they work on, so that's gonna help them learn how to navigate different sequences of patterns and following directions, we do exercises on the horses. So we're working on strength and balance flexibility. Um, you know, teamwork, a lot of our rider have a hard time with working as a team, um, on other types of sports. And when they're with their horses, it doesn't seem to matter. And they learn that it's okay to work with somebody it's okay. Not to be first it's okay. You know, to make a mistake. So we do a lot of things on being impulsive and slowing that down frustration. How do we regroup? So when we get to sneak all of these amazing benefits while they're riding a horse, which is so cool, because they don't even realize that we're doing all of these things to help them improve in so many daily life skills because they get to do that while they're on their horse. So that's a really neat thing that we get to do.
Speaker 2 00:08:45 So I wanted to highlight something that you said, um, you know, cuz we think of rideability. I always think of people with just physical disabilities, um, being able to come out and now, you know, get on the back of a horse, but you said learning disabilities. So these are people that are physically, they're fine, but they're just having difficulty with processes, with learning different things. Can you explain a little bit further how therapeutic course back riding helps with that?
Speaker 3 00:09:10 Oh, absolutely. Um, that is one of our, you know, we work every single day with children like that. So when you have learning difficulties or processing language, speech, any of those, not that I'm a speech or language therapist and that's not what I'm doing with them, but we want to make our obstacle courses and the things that we're working with, we want to make them educational at the same time. So if you come out to our arenas, they're very colorful. They have letters, numbers, alphabet, they have, um, identification of objects. Um, we have a lot of things with counting. We just built one of our families just built us an incredible sensory area, which they actually go on the horse to these different areas. So're problem solving. So we're working on problem solving on certain games, we're working on, um, how to identify if you want to put the ball into basket one, how do you move dandy, backward forth to get to basket number one.
Speaker 3 00:10:05 So we're working on our writing skills at the same time that we're asking them to perform a certain task. We have, um, an a, a thing at the century where they have to do math, where they have to move the different balls from one side to the other and learn, you know, if you have two balls move over to the right and they move them and they're doing this all on the horse. So they're working on balance at the same time, you know, they're working on reaching and they're doing and fine and gross motor skills. Um, we have things out there like even its simple game is tic tech toe that's problem solving. That's using your brain and processing and thinking things through, um, even an obstacle course, you, you know, following that pattern, you know, it's not just where you wanna go. We have an absolute pattern that you have to learn and work with and not all of our writers can do that and we chunk it down and we might be working on a circle today and being excited that they're allowing us to help them use their own in turn.
Speaker 3 00:11:01 So there's all depending on the writer's abilities, how we create that lesson plan. So when our writers come to us, we do a screening on them so that we know what their lesson plans are, what their goals are. We work hand in hand with their, our, our parents, their PTs OTs, so that we can provide them with the best, um, service. We also look at their IEPs and see what they're working on in school. Um, and things like that. So whether it be, you know, the physical impairments we know, um, or we're working on all that with our balance and strength and our muscle, but our obstacles and our sensory area and all of our educational things are going to help with that learning and that processing. Um, we even have a visually impaired, um, young little girl that's just started. And I reached out to the Clover high school and I was so excited because the hearing impaired teacher has come down to the center now and she's helping us create an entire formula and game plan that we can make, you know, the little girls, um, session, even better, you know, I've worked with, yeah, I've worked with a lot of hearing impaired.
Speaker 3 00:12:04 I've got some sign language underneath me, but this is a whole new, exciting thing. And if we can offer therapeutic writing to children that have visual parents, this is just opens it up to even more people that we can serve in our community. So we're just excited to be doing that. So that's a whole new fun thing.
Speaker 2 00:12:21 Oh, that is exciting. So if parents are looking for something different, maybe they've been doing the same old thing for a while. I know as a physical therapist, sometimes, you know, if you're doing the same routines, it, the body gets used to it and it gets old. And so doing something different, like therapeutic writing may open up some brain pathways and create some success for 'em.
Speaker 3 00:12:41 Yeah. Yeah. And I love working hand in hand with physical therapists and OTs and speech and language in New York, we had an extremely large physical therapy medical chiropractic office. So we worked with, we had, I think, five PTs acupuncturists, you know, um, speech and language. So to me, if we all work hand in hand with our kids, it's just, they're just gonna benefit even that much more.
Speaker 2 00:13:02 Ah, I'm in a hundred percent agreement, it takes a village.
Speaker 3 00:13:05 Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:13:07 Let's talk a little bit about the horses. I mean, so you're talking, these kids are on horseback, they're doing all these different activities. You have to have some pretty special horses, uh, to be able to handle all that I would think.
Speaker 3 00:13:18 Absolutely. So just like not every dog is meant to be a service dog. Not every horse is meant to be a service horse as well. So our horses go through, um, a big training. So before they even come to us and most of them are on donation. Um, people have either the kids have gone to college, they've moved, they're just not riding anymore. And they call us that they have a special horse. Not all of them are so special. I get a lot of trolls every day, but not every horse has been for this. We're very, very careful. We've been doing this out here in Clover for almost 10 years. And only out of all the horses that we've had, only three of them were not therapeutic, ready to be therapeutic horses. So, which is really exciting. So before they even come to our program, we of course, before I would even venture out to go look at them, they have to have something my interview, when I'm speaking to the owner to, for, to even look at them, then we'll go out there and we'll spend some time with them to make sure that they are everything, the owner, things that they are.
Speaker 3 00:14:20 We spend a lot of time with groundwork and touching and grooming and we bring lots of volunteers out. We wanna see how they are with just a lot of people around them. Um, then we might bring some of our, um, writers out with us that I know can help us with that and see how the rider feel with them. Then we'll ride them, ourselves, myself, and my other instructor. Um, well Maddie will ride them with us and we just wanna make sure that they possibly are a good fit before we even take them on trial. They come to us on trial for anywhere from a month to two months, for me to, for us to go through all of the training situations that these horses would have to be in it. So they have to have a really whatever kind of attitude, not hot, not spooky.
Speaker 3 00:15:04 Um, just like, oh, okay. They have to be very forgiving because I have writers that are up there and they're flapping or they're screaming or they're making noises. They might be very, very floppy as far as their balance and leaning and very low muscle tone and leaning to one side, the horse has to be like, that's not a big deal. Or if they have cerebral palsy, they might be very spastic on their legs or on their arms. And the horses have to not react to that. Um, so it takes a lot for a horse to be a therapeutic horse. So if you saw myself or Maddie training a horse, you might think we had autism. Um, or that we had low muscle tongue, cuz we have to basically, you know, go out there and, and pretend that we are like that. So we can see how they react to it.
Speaker 3 00:15:48 Um, we have an electric lift that takes riders out of a wheelchair and lifts them up in the air and puts 'em onto the horse. So they have to be able to, you know, go through that. And that's a scary thing for a horse to have somebody flying over them. And um, not all our horses actually do the lift, so we don't push that onto them. And we, the ones that do are the ones that get to work with our writers with that, which is really neat. So they, once they pass that test, um, then we'll usually start them with some of our more independent writers. And then from that point on, they're really pretty much, they go right into our program, but we make sure that they've passed everything. We dot our eyes and cross our Ts to make sure that they're ready for our riders even. Um, and we'll talk about our move that we just moved locations. We spent a good three and a half weeks. We shut down so that we can make sure that our courses were perfect for everybody to come back once we had moved. So we're very, very cautious on that because of horse is a horse. Um, but as far as horses, I think ours are the best, but yeah, that's me and my horses.
Speaker 2 00:16:49 <laugh> <laugh> well, you can say that you've
Speaker 3 00:16:51 Trained. I can say that the best they're absolutely the best.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 So can you give us a couple examples of some of the successes that you've seen, uh, through therapeutic course back riding?
Speaker 3 00:17:01 Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 00:17:03 Narrow it down to two. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:17:05 Yeah. How long does this, uh, podcast? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. My goodness. We have had, I cry a lot. We cry a lot. I mean, I could tell you even this past week we have a new little young man that just started, um, autism level three, very, very high on the spectrum. And his first day that he came, his shoes were flying everywhere and he was laying in the sand and we couldn't get him to stand up. And my mom happened to have been there and she's just watching and we got him to stand up. I couldn't touch him. And I finally got him to stood up and I realized how I can put my arm sort of around him, but like dye him. And he touched the horse with his pointer, like 10 times. And I was like, okay. And that was pretty much like all we got to do.
Speaker 3 00:17:48 And you know, part of me was like, oh my gosh, that's all we got to do. And then I realized, wow, he's outside. He's doing something new. He's trying something new. This is so different. Then he came back the second time and I actually got him to brush the horse with me and I was like, oh my gosh, we're gonna do this. And he, he walks away and I'm able to get him back and get the shoes back on and all those different things and got him. And he started to be, he brushed the horse by himself. These are milestones that people that don't have children with special needs might not realize that that is huge for this family, that, that he is actually out there and doing this thing and maybe have something to call his own. And that's really one of the biggest things is we want our riders to be able to shine and have something that they call their own.
Speaker 3 00:18:37 So that's just, that's a big thing. And then Saturday, he was with me and now he lets me touch him. And we're talking after three visits that he's now letting me touch him and move him and guide him. And he's listening to me. And I said to the dad, your homework is to get his helmet on. That's your homework this week. Here's a helmet. Good luck. I'll see you next week. And he did. And the father really did it. And when he came on Saturday, I, when he came on Saturday, I just basically said, sorry about that. I said to the dad, we're ready to get on. We're gonna get on. And the dad was like, really? I said, yes, we're getting on. And we walked over to, we walked over to the, um, ramp and they lifted him on and we rode and we rode and we rode and he rode and he did amazing.
Speaker 3 00:19:24 What does that do for him? Wow. He knows he's done something different. He's enjoying it. He's doing that. But from a parent's viewpoint, imagine being a parent and seeing your child doing that, you know, and I say that with all of our things, imagine being the parent or the grandparent, watching your child do something that you never thought, like, even with our special Olympics, I have so many children, like they're out there competing for three straight days of like competing against people all over the state. Like parents, like they look back and they go, oh my gosh. When my child was little, this was never thought to be something that I would ever think that they'd be able to do. So it goes far beyond just the benefit to the child. Um, we have people that, you know, they use the electric lift and they get on, they're very, very, um, low muscle tone and they're using their muscles.
Speaker 3 00:20:17 I have a little boy, James that's been riding with me for years and he was so little, he used to ride in my lap. He was so little. And he came, um, back to the new center last week and he's gotten so big in everything now. And he was pushing himself up and he's got severe muscle tone loss, and he's just has no upper body. And his head was up and he was pushing in and I said, do this for your horsey. And they worked so hard for their horse. It's amazing. You know, I have one young woman, um, she had a traumatic brain injury and when she first came to us, it took six of us to get her on five of us to hold her on. We did not have the electric lift. At that point, we had the wheelchair ramp. She would've done anything to get on that horse.
Speaker 3 00:21:03 She had rode a lot before her accident and my mom had built a vest with handles and she had a neck brace on and she had a gate belt. She had so much on her. And when she rode, she said she felt free. Even though she had all these people on her. Now she rides with nobody holding her. No special things, no gadgets, no gate, but nothing. She has a leader and two people on the side, which would pretty much there just as her team. Um, so we see incredible things like that. We have kids that talk for the first time when they're on their, when their horse, even that young man that I was talking about, that we got on last weekend, when he left, he doesn't really speak. And he looked at doc and he went, bye duck. And I was my mouth just like hung open. So we see so many things like that to see people that are stronger and more just powerful within themselves. And I asked my kids on the special Olympic team. I'm like, how does it make you feel? Like, what are you feeling like, I feel excited. I feel happy. I feel proud to be able to give that to somebody that might not have ever had the chance to do something like this. To me, that is just such a blessing, you know? And it's just amazing.
Speaker 2 00:22:15 That is amazing. I know. That's, that's gotta be very rewarding and I'm sure a lot of hard work too. It is. So you talked about five and six people holding somebody down that kind of leads me into, you know, how, how does viability run? I mean, is it by volunteers? Is it by paid workers? I mean, how do you accomplish all that you need to accomplish with the horses and, and the riders?
Speaker 3 00:22:38 I have one amazing, um, instructor. She's been with me actually. She's been with me since she's 14 and now she's in her twenties. And after she went to college, she came back and realized, this is what she needed to do. And she's basically built, um, rideability with me since the beginning, Maddie. And she's just been a blessing who runs this place. These incredible, incredible, incredible did I mention incredible volunteers <laugh> without them, there is absolutely no right ability. I come home at night and sometimes I'm really quiet, which is sometimes very unusual and my husband will be like, what's that? And I'm like, I'm just sitting. And I'm just so humbled. And I am so touched by the love and the dedication that these people have come together to help our mission, to, to help our children, our, our adults, our Olympians, our horses, you name it, like the dedication that they have put it, and it's not easy, you know, and we get the, you know, we get volunteers that are there to make a difference because it is work.
Speaker 3 00:23:38 Um, but they are love and their devotion to these families. I cannot explain to you how blessed we are every single day and how truly grateful we are, because without them, like I said, there is no us. Um, and when they're out there and I just, I just sometimes just look around and stare. And if I had like a moment to cry, happy tears, watching them and watching them, hugging our, our riders and loving on them and cheering them on and telling them that they did a great job, you know, or, you know, or if I turn around, I just see like an embrace that the writer needed, you know? And I always look back and I go, you know, I sometimes think it's not just the, the writers that we're helping here. I think sometimes the volunteers are here because it's therapeutic for them as well. Oh yeah. You know, when, when you can help somebody else or just smell a horse and be around a horse, if you're a horsey person, you know, it's a win-win, but they are, they are my, everything. They are, are everything. I, I just, I feel like I can't say it enough and I feel like I say it all the time to them, but they are just they're, they are liability. I'm just a little portion of it.
Speaker 2 00:24:46 Well that, but you know, it took that first step that you took so long ago to say, Hey, I'm changing my career, but I know that's gotta be just amazing to see where that path has taken you.
Speaker 3 00:24:56 Oh my gosh. I'm just, I look at, I look out my window and I just see it and I'm just, oh my goodness. It just, it's an amazing thing to see. And I'm just so proud of these forces because they too, if they were human, I just, you know, I hope they know how much we appreciate that because they are. They're amazing. They're amazing. One thing that we didn't mention is that we have a veteran's program, um, that is also a part of our program. It's not as big as our other program, but what we wanna do is we wanna have veterans to come and get out of their homes and start to socialize again, which is a very tough thing. Once we get our veterans here, they're happy. They are learning new skills. They are learning how to work with the horses. They are learning how to communicate with the horses, groom, the horses tack the horses and many of our veterans who gosh, were home bound and couldn't leave their house are helping us in lessons.
Speaker 3 00:25:49 You know, if I'll be like, can you, do you think you could help me in this lesson? And they're like, absolutely. And to be able to have that happen to them is amazing. You know, I have one veteran right now who's he runs the show like he comes, he does like, I'm like, do I even need to be here right now, feeding horses. And he's like, not really, you know, and I'm like, he's handling, he wasn't even a horse person. He is handling 15 of animals like in the morning. It's amazing. But to be able to give that, thank you back to him and to our other veterans to say, thank you so much for what you've done for us and our country. And we want to give this back to you. And our veterans program is a free program. Um, so to be able to, to do that for them and for them to get out and socialize and feel proud of who they are and realize that they are awesome. And that they're, there's a lot of people out here cheering them on and want them to be well and to be happy. So that's a really cool program that we have here as well.
Speaker 2 00:26:46 That's great, cuz yes, they're the ones who have served and protected us. So that's great that you can get back to them and get them to get back to life a little bit too. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I believe we talked a little bit about a, a work study program that you may have as well.
Speaker 3 00:27:01 Yes, absolutely. That is a fun program because I just love being able to give our young adults the ability to learn how to go to a job. So one thing with, you know, young adults with special needs, it's very hard to get a job. Um, not, everybody's so open to giving jobs to children with young adults with special needs. But I do know our community is becoming amazing with it. Um, you know, I know I'll plug up like Eagle's nest and even McDonald, like they are hiring young adults with special needs, tend to hearts. Like I think that is just amazing. And I commend them because you're not gonna get a, a harder worker than somebody that has, you know, special needs even publics like amazing. So our work study program is a program that teaches you how to go to work. How do you go to work?
Speaker 3 00:27:48 How do you work with peers? How do you work with a supervisor? How do you get your job done? So they come and they will learn a specific skill that they have to do at the barn, whether it's cleaning water, trust, feed buckets, making feed, um, you know, help even helping with the horses. They will have specific directions. I have volunteers now with young, with autism that are driving my Gator that are dragging my arenas, my manure spreader dragging the fields like they are capable and we want them to be able to do it all. Um, so to be able to give them that opportunity to come to work, and I feel like I have a relationship with them where I could say, you know, if you did that at another job, you know what you would be. And they would look at me and they'd go fired.
Speaker 3 00:28:36 I'm like, that's right. Like if you act like that or speak to somebody like that, they're not gonna ask you to come back to work. So let's try to figure out some ways that we cannot have those behaviors so that when you go to work, we don't have to worry about that. So I feel like if you go to work and something happens, you're not gonna get the opportunity to sit down with somebody to tell you that. Right. So if I could teach those things before they go out, um, I think that would be great. I also, um, worked with the high school where we actually had people from the community come in and the students would learn how to put together a resume. And then we would be the community leaders and they would actually have to come in, sit down and have an interview with us.
Speaker 3 00:29:17 Oh. So that they would learn how to interview skills, which I think is so valuable. Like you need to interview yet. Our community also needs to understand a child with autism. They're not gonna look you in the eye and that's okay. Right. So that's also our community understanding that as well in our society. Um, and I try to let student, and I have some children with autism that can, you know, communicate with me and say, but if I don't look at them, am I not gonna get the job? And I said, you know, maybe you can say, you know, if you're talking to somebody, you could say, you know, I don't always look people right in the eye, you know, because I have autism, they know you have autism and that's okay. Um, and it's worked great. And I've had a couple students get really good jobs by being honest. And that's okay. And then of course there are other students that aren't gonna be able to do that, but if we can teach those skills, have them come to work, have them learn a job, have them learn to work with a supervisor or peers. That's just gonna be able to help them when they go out to try to get a, a job out in the community.
Speaker 2 00:30:15 That's great. So what I'm hearing you say is you're giving people ability. Yes. Instead of focusing on disability,
Speaker 3 00:30:21 Absolutely
Speaker 2 00:30:22 Live life without limits.
Speaker 3 00:30:23 Absolutely. We have a, t-shirt one of our, t-shirts says my horse doesn't dis my abilities. <laugh>, you know, cause you know, it's true. I mean, I, I don't, I don't ever look. It's interesting. I don't ever look at my kids. You know that they have disabilities. I look at them and I always say to people, you know, we are supposed to be like our, these kids here, like our kids here, they're pure. There's no judgementalness. There's no, I'm not, they're not opinionated. They're forgiving. If they're upset with you, they forgive you five minutes later. Um, there's no gossiping. There's no it's about pure love and joy and acceptance and they accept each other. And you know, we have a little girl who's visually impaired with another little girl who has a speech and language disorder. And yet they're like becoming best friends. We have two little girls that both are nonverbal and they're like best barn, best, best friends. So, you know, I never look at, I never look at the disabilities. It's always about like what they can do, how they can do it, how strongly they can do it. Um, yeah, that's a real big, important thing.
Speaker 2 00:31:32 Well, Wendy, congratulations on 10 years, I mean, you really have developed an amazing program that is helping, you know, people learn to live life and get back to life and, and not everybody does that. Not everybody can see ability and disability. So I commend you for what you've done. And I'm excited that it's in our community of Clover. Um, and we wanna try to connect people to you. So let me make sure I'm recapping correctly here. You, if somebody wants to volunteer, they can reach out to you. If somebody wants therapeutic horseback riding, they can reach out to you. If they're a veteran and wants to be a part of the program, they can reach out to you. If they have a disability and wanna be part of the work study program and learn how to get into the workforce, they can reach out to you. Did, did I cover everything
Speaker 3 00:32:16 <laugh> oh, absolutely. Except donations that we can
Speaker 2 00:32:19 <laugh> and, and donations as well, which I do think you have something coming up in September. Um, are you having an event?
Speaker 3 00:32:26 Absolutely. So just so that everybody knows about 52% of our families cannot afford to pay. Um, when we first opened up here, I was like, wow, the need for our program is huge. And then we were, oh my goodness. We have an issue here with financial obstacles. So through our amazing community. And I cannot tell you how amazing the Mayday project line, the river Hills lions club. Sweet repeat. I mean, I, the, it could just go on and on and on and on that our community has taken us under the wings, Lutz foundation and all of our individual donors. Um, without them, we could not do what we do as well, because if you have 52% of your families not being able to pay for your services, and yet you have 15 horses to feed hay and feed and veterinarian and far, and you, you name it, supplements, saddles, all those things that we need to run our program, we couldn't do it if only 50% of our writers could pay.
Speaker 3 00:33:27 So through the, um, love of our community and, uh, and even people outside of our community, um, we're able to do this, um, by getting sponsorships and it's called our tuition assistance program. So anybody that wants to fund that program and help with that, that gets rider to be able to participate. And then it's a win-win cuz it goes right back into operations. So it becomes a, a win-win your donation for tuition assistance then helps us feed our horses as well. Um, fundraising is a huge thing. We have our bow race coming up. It is an actual, real bow race. We are not bow racing. I am not bow racing. Um, so, um, it's a, it's a real at, over at B B arena. And Bart has been so gracious to give us his facility for the day and Mattie and Kennedy, um, are our head leaders of the bow race.
Speaker 3 00:34:17 They are basically the ones running the show. Um, they did a fantastic job last year, our very first bow race. We raised $13,000, which was like, oh my gosh, like I couldn't even believe it. We had food trucks there. We have vendors there. We have things selling there. And if you're a bow racer or a beginning bow racer, you're with a group, it's a great opportunity for you to come to a nice show and show off your skills. Even if you're a high level bow racer, it's a great opportunity to win some money and prizes and all that good stuff. So that's September 17th. Then we're gonna have our annual horse show in November, which is also a big fundraiser for us. So we really do rely on our community fund fundraising and we rely on, um, individuals and then of course our fundraisers.
Speaker 2 00:35:03 So if somebody wants to donate and not wait until the events in September, November, how can they do that?
Speaker 3 00:35:09 So you can always do through PayPal, but they do take out a percentage. So we're always like, let us add a little bit in extra or they can just send a check to rideability as well. And then there's no problem with any percentages coming out. Um, yeah, and we are fundraising cause um, one of the exciting things is we had been renting and leasing at, um, Turkey farms for the last 10 years and we outgrew it. Um, we were no longer able to expand to the way we needed to, to expand our mission. And we were very blessed to have a family in Clover, have 20 acres for us. So we have moved here in the last month and we are doing absolutely amazing. And um, our barn of UN unfortunately isn't up yet between, um, parts and things being delayed in, you know, manufacturing. Um, so it's finally gonna be hopefully going up next week or the week after. Um, but we are fundraising for the last little bits of things for the, for the barn we need about 40 stall Maxs. That's a, that's our biggie. That's our next fundraiser is raising money for 40 stall racks. We just raised money for all of our hay racks. Um, so yeah, so we're just raising right now. Everything that we're raising is to go into our twisting assistance program and into the new facility, into the barn.
Speaker 2 00:36:24 Okay. So if somebody wants to reach out to you, whether it's to ride or to volunteer, um, what is the best way for them to do that
Speaker 3 00:36:32 Email? That would be the best. So if they go to ride ability C gmail.com, so that's an SC for South Carolina, that's like the best way to get ahold of me, cuz I will respond to that the next day or that night.
Speaker 2 00:36:46 So that's a okay. And uh, if they wanna learn more about the facility, what is your website?
Speaker 3 00:36:51 Sure. Our website is rideability sc.com and you'll also see on there, um, when our next volunteer orientations are. So we have one coming up on July 9th, I think it's at 1230. If you look off on the website, you'll see that. Um, and then there's forms on there for writers and for volunteers. So if you go on a website, if you're interested in becoming a writer, there's a writer's application package with three pages that have to go to the doctor for diagnosis and then there's a volunteer application package to become a volunteer. Um, and if that orientation isn't good, they reach out to me. We could just always set up a private orientation as well.
Speaker 2 00:37:31 Okay, great. Well Wendy, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This has been great. I mean, it's, I'm excited that we have something to this level in our community and just again, Bravo to you and, and your crew that has put this together and I wish you the best and that it just that you outgrow the 20 acres now. Aw.
Speaker 3 00:37:49 So don't tell my husband that <laugh> I
Speaker 2 00:37:51 Know <laugh> but we wish you all the best. Uh, for those of you who are interested, please reach out to Wendy. Um, I, I can tell you that she's very easy to talk to and, uh, and is very passionate about what she does. So, uh, until next time please, uh, follow us on social media at lifestyle P P two, and we'll see you on the next show.
Speaker 3 00:38:12 Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 00:38:19 Thank you for joining us today. And we hope you enjoyed this podcast. Make sure to like us on Facebook at lifestyle physical therapy, LLC, and on Instagram and Twitter at lifestyle PT two until next time stay connected and be well.
