HORSES HELPING KIDS LEARN - CLASSROOM NEEDED

HELP US SHARE THE MAGIC OF HORSES! Welcome to the GoFundMe for Friends of Spring Creek Equestrian Center. What happens at Spring Creek is magical - children, adults, and families learn and grow with the help of horses. We need your help to reach more people and enhance the programs at our equine-assisted learning facility in Southwest Michigan.

We see the magic first-hand. We are Friends of Spring Creek Equestrian Center, equine professionals and volunteers who serve hundreds of children and adults each year through horseback riding lessons, homeschool classes, camps for kids, and programs underwritten by the Spring Creek Horses Help Foundation. We provide the Foundation with a facility where under-resourced children and adults can learn about horses free of charge. Please note - this GoFundMe is for Spring Creek Equestrian Center, a privately owned stable, not a foundation or charity.

While learning about horse behavior, how to care for horses, and how to ride, individuals build important life skills like personal responsibility, time management, and teamwork. They develop deeper self-confidence, compassion, and a sense of accomplishment working with these large, sensitive, and beautiful animals. We see it happen through human/horse encounters every day. We know of no other facility in Southwest Michigan offering this unique mix of programs.

We are raising $100,000 to expand our programs by improving our facility, building a dedicated indoor classroom, and adding climate-controlled seating overlooking the indoor arena. Built in 2012, the barn and arena have served us well. Still, we can do more.

Classroom

A key component of our programs is classroom instruction on horse behavior and care. Currently, classes are held outside in good weather or, otherwise, in a small lounge where there are frequent interruptions from others using the barn facilities and from the barn cats. A dedicated indoor classroom will allow for year-round programming and eliminate interruptions. Barn cats will not have access to the classroom and participants with allergies will have a more comfortable environment in which to learn.

Arena Seating

Our facility includes a heated indoor arena which allows us to offer programs year-round. Currently, there is no arena seating. Seating will provide parents and staff from partnering organizations the opportunity to watch individuals working with horses and to recognize more fully their tremendous effort and personal growth.

You are welcome to visit us at Spring Creek Equestrian Center in Three Oaks, Michigan to learn more about our educational programs and our expansion project. Or simply donate online. Your gift is not tax deductible; nothing will be received in return for this gift. What you will gain is knowing you're helping expand the reach and effectiveness of our work with kids, adults, and families.

Horses provide the magic; you can help provide more of it!

Thank you!

TESTIMONIALS

Mackenzie Kastl (former CEO, Boys & Girls Clubs of Benton Harbor discusses the Club’s partnership with Spring Creek)

A lot of our kids that grow up in Benton Harbor never really have an opportunity to leave until they graduate or until they create their pathway to the future, but we can take these kids at a young age and introduce them to something totally new. Give them an opportunity to see a really different world and how diverse not just Southwest Michigan can be, but really how their futures can be. And so through opportunities in introducing them to horses, introducing them to agriculture in general and really creating a partnership with people who care about them and care about creating those partnerships, it’s really going to be an awesome way to expand their horizons and show them what opportunities are out there for them.

Vonnie (referring to her grandson, Wyatt, who has autism)

I feel that Wyatt has been given a gift by coming here... I want to see other kids that might have his problems or similar problems, I know some adults that benefit from stuff like that because they’re just, the world has not been too good to them, and to come to a place where everybody is good to you and you have a horse that loves you unconditionally and that you can actually talk to and manage. I want others to experience what Wyatt has experienced and what I have. I come out here on a bad day myself. I find a horse and I lay my head on it and I’m in a better place, so, if anybody else can have that, I want them to.

Mallory Nicholson (Vice Principal of River of Life Christian School commenting on the program’s impact on her students)

I think it’s been a major confidence builder. A lot of them have never been up close and personal with an animal - especially not a horse - and so they did have lots of fears and reservations about it. I was doing lots of coaching, prior to coming here, like you can do it, it’s safe. But once they got to be here and actually learn to ride a horse, I could see the confidence shift in them.