Hope Equine Rescue

Experience Type: Volunteer

Date Started: January, 2020

Average Hours/Week: 7

Organization Name: Hope Equine Rescue

Country: USA

City: Winter Haven, FL

Contact Name: Dani Horton Contact Title: President, Trainer

Contact’s Phone: 863-287-7503 Email Address: hopeequinerescue@yahoo.com

Experience Description: Currently volunteering twice a week, I serve multiple purposes at this horse rescue. First, the other volunteers clean out all of the around thirty stalls. This includes cleaning the water buckets, feed pans, and then actual stall of the horse and cleaning the water buckets and sweeping the mats of the pastures as well. After that, we work on horse training and grooming, where we learn how to train the horses while teaching them with the goal of making them adoptable. This facility rescues horses, miniature horses, and donkeys and has provided me with great opportunities for learning about each one, learning about caring for them, and learning how to train them in the safest way possible.

Most Meaningful: This is certainly one of my most meaningful experiences for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, it has solidified that this is what I want to do because I very much look forward to volunteering and really enjoy going and participating. Also, it has been a really great learning opportunity. Even though I have only been volunteering there for a month so far, I have learned a lot about horse and donkey care and training that I didn’t know before. I also get to witness a lot of aspects of care and training that I feel are extremely beneficial for my future seeing as I often get to hear about and witness the president of the organization applying/dispensing medication to the ill animals or learn about how they became injured or sick and how they can become better. Lastly, I think all of the experiences I have had so far will only grow and will teach me even more since there is a lot of opportunity for growth while volunteering with them. You start as a volunteer in training, learning the basics of the barn, and then progress up the color scale, green indicating you may work with beginner horses, yellow for intermediate horses, and red for dangerous horses. As you go along, you get more and more opportunities to learn about the medical and training aspects of caring for the rescues.