SOAR in the Saddle offers horsemanship therapy for special needs children, at-risk youth, and underpriviledged children in our community. SOAR stands for Success, Outreach, Achievement, and Responsibility. Our program is free to participants and all we ask
is that the children "pay it forward" by helping another individual or organization in their community. About half of the children in our program each session are recommended by school counselors, social services, or mental health counselors. During our first
year from September 2012 to August 2013, we had 81 children particpate in SOAR.
The SOAR staff are volunteers who understand the magic that horses can bring to children because of the magic it brought to our own lives. We know first hand how caring for and riding horses brought and continues to bring, joy, freedom and achievement to
our lives and is the reason we want to share this with others, especially those who would not be able to afford lessons or who are experiencing life challenges. Our "pay it forward" model of horsemanship therapy is unique in Maryland and we believe we can
create a model to share with others to implement in their neighborhood. That's the SOAR future we envision. But for now, we need to build our program.
In addition to our other horses, currently we have on loan to us three horses, Cinco, Pine and RJ who have turned out to be wonderful therapists and patient mounts. We would like to be able to purchase them for our program so we can expand our summer session.
These horses are available to us from mid-August to mid-May and then they go back to summer camp. Our contracts for these horses state that we would need to purchase them by mid-December. Summer is a popular time for children to be involved with SOAR and we
aren't able to reach as many children when the horses leave for the summer. Please help us help our children SOAR into summer!
For more information on SOAR in the Saddle, visit our website
www.soarinthesaddle.org and like us on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/SOARintheSaddle.
