FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH Spirit Open Equestrian Program Newsletter November/December 2015 Calendar of Events Ride4SPIRIT - 11/14 10a.m. Abilities Expo – 12/4-6 Season’s Greetings & Happy Holidays from SPIRIT Silent Auction & Social at Kalypso in Reston – 12/12 Dear Friends, 5p.m. – 9p.m. As we enter the holiday season and reflect on the moments that made this year so Winter Dressage Series – special, we are so grateful for your friendship. This was a year of wonderful 1/23/16, 2/27/16, accomplishments. You made these moments possible and brought joy to so many! 3/12/16, 4/30/16 We wish you joy and peace and look forward to a very Happy New Year! Winter Sessions – ~ Dada & the SPIRIT Team 1/18/16 – 2/8/16, 2/22/16-3/7/16 Summer Camps – 6/20/16 – 6/24/16, 6/27/16 – 7/1/16, 8/15/16 – 8/19/16, The Year in Review 8/22/16 – 8/26/16 Thank you to everyone for making 2015 one of our best years! It may be tough to remember back to those cold and snowy days in January but SPIRIT has grown and shone throughout the year! Our achievements in 2015 will carry SPIRIT into 2016 with hope, courage and strength! SPIRIT Board Our SPIRIT family increased in our number of clients and service hours! We renewed our existing contract with the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) for the next 7 years! We Welcomes 1 More! received a new contract with the Community Service Act (CSA). We continued to develop and strengthen our EAA programs and relationships with the McLean Bible Church, McLean New Director Aaron Fleet! Community Center and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). We put on 2 fantastic Ride4SPIRIT events showcasing the talents of our riders and also the skill SPIRIT Introduces and dedication of our volunteers, EAL students and instructors and we are not done yet! We have one more Ride4SPIRIT coming up on November 14 to showcase the equitation skills of New Instructors- our EAL riders! in-Training New Instructors-in-Training Aaron Fleet, Katie Holloway, Joanne Morgan, Laura Welsh, & Lauren Wong SPIRIT Riders & Team at the September Ride4SPIRIT SPIRIT Open Equestrian Program Inc. 2705 West Ox Rd, Herndon, VA 20171 | Phone: 703-600-9667 | Email: [email protected] pg. 1 Horsing Around Program News & Upcoming Events We grew our skills as riders, volunteers and horsey people. Members of our team took training and became certified on providing equine assisted learning and psychotherapy It’s the Season of activities for families and grew our network of Giving! connections to other equine assisted learning and therapy programs and professionals. Want to help SPIRIT this We welcomed new friends and family, new holiday season? Here are riders and participants to our program, new three easy ways to support volunteers, new directors to our board and new SPIRIT this season! supporters to our mission. We welcomed two Sally greets SPIRIT Riders new horses, Sally and Max! Combined Federal Campaign We bid a heartfelt farewells and until-we-meet-agains to Lucinda and Stitch, Board of Are you looking for a great Directors Vice President Tawny Hammond, Instructor Sarah Morehouse, several of our organization to contribute to volunteers who are away at school and participants and riders who have moved away. as part of the CFC? How Finally, we ran several successful fundraising about SPIRIT? CFC # 21744! campaigns and events that have helped to spread the word about SPIRIT and garner Amazon Smile support from our friends and supporters! You can help SPIRIT while We are looking forward to a fantastic 2016 shopping this holiday and all of making new memories and achieving new year round! Go to heights with all of you! smile.amazon.com. Sign in Lucinda bids SPIRIT farewell with her owners and select SPIRIT Open Ride4SPIRIT Rides Again! Caroline & Carina Elgin, Dada, mentor Ilana Equestrian Program and Dust off your helmets and polish your riding boots! The Ride4SPIRIT Horsemanship Event is Amazon will make a coming on November 14th! This event will feature our EAL riders, volunteers and members of donation to SPIRIT for all the community as they present their equitation and horsemanship skills and also compete in a eligible purchases! variety of fun games! Want to volunteer? Contact the SPIRIT office at [email protected] Bravelets: Be Brave and 2015 is Going Out With a (Silent) Bang! Support SPIRIT Join SPIRIT on December 12th at Kalypso Sports Tavern in Reston from 5-9p.m. for a Bravelets jewelry makes a celebration of 2015’s achievements and to support our silent auction fundraiser! Come wonderful holiday gift to celebrate and socialize with other members of the SPIRIT family, riders, volunteers, staff and remind someone you love instructors and bid on some wonderful and unique items…all to help SPIRIT! We will also be how brave they are and can voting for several categories of Riders of the Year and Volunteers of the Year and will announce the winners at the event! Tickets are $20 and include appetizers such as wings, gyro be! Shop at sliders, flatbread pizzas, and various dips! Contact the SPIRIT office for information on https://www.bravelets.com/bra purchasing tickets! vepage/spirit-open-equestrian- program and they will make a Introducing the SPIRIT Winter Dressage Series! donation to SPIRIT for each purchase! SPIRIT is proud to announce our first ever Winter Dressage Schooling Show Series! SPIRIT riders are invited to register with dates in January, February, March and April. Classes will include USEF intro through FEI & USEA tests. Points will include show series and CDCTA year end points! For more information and the registration form, visit the SPIRIT blog and click the “Events” tab (http://spiritopenequestrian.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html) SPIRIT Open Equestrian Program Inc. 2705 West Ox Rd, Herndon, VA 20171 | Phone: 703-600-9667 | Email: [email protected] pg. 2 Horsing Around Program News & Upcoming Events SPIRIT Will Be Wrapped with Love this Winter! Thank you Emme Warren for thinking of SPIRIT for your Loudoun Debutant service project! The More the Emme brought a group from the Loudoun Debutant Program to clean, mend, and organize all Merrier: Board of of our horses’ blankets! They took the horses' measurements so this winter each one will be Directors Hosts an wrapped in love and a well-fitting blanket! Emme says “I decided to do my project with SPIRIT Open House! because it’s a really important program for me in The SPIRIT Board of Directors my life!” Participant Skylar Failor said she came to hosted an open house on help “because the horses are amazing and cute.” We are grateful to Emme for thinking of SPIRIT October 11th to introduce and bringing new friends to learn about our work! SPIRIT to new members of our Fitting the herd for blankets community. Guests met the SPIRIT at the Abilities Expo! board and herd and learned It's official! SPIRIT will have a booth at the upcoming Metro DC Abilities Expo to be held at the more about our mission and Dulles Expo Center from December 4-6 (http://www.abilities.com/dcmetro/). The show our programs. We are grateful features ability-enhancing devices, ability-improving therapies and programs, all sorts of for all the new connections adaptive sports, and cutting-edge products and services. Workshops tailored for special needs and friendships made through or challenged children, adults, seniors, veterans, health care professionals, and caregivers will this event and are excited offer take-home solutions to common problems. Everything under one roof! about the new energy and Featured speaker, Rupert Isaacson, wrote “The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son,” a ideas that our new friends deeply moving story of a family willing to go to the ends of the earth for their autistic son” and brought with them! is the founder of the Horse Boy Method (https://www.horseboyworld.com/). Continuing the 30-year tradition, this Expo is the “go-to source for the community of people with disabilities,” Update on the Big registration is free and open to all. Want to help? Contact Diane Pires at 703-391-9604. Heart, Big Hooves, SPIRIT Soared at our September Ride4SPIRIT Event! Big...Hurt Congratulations to all of our riders from our Ride4SPIRIT event that was held on September 26th and a TREMENDOUS Thank You to all of our EAL students, volunteers, assistants, mentors Fundraiser for and volunteers who made the event a huge success! Our riders gave an amazing presentation Samson! and our team in the ring was truly exceptional. Our guests had a great time playing games, The online Indiegogo winning prizes, learning about horses in our horsemanship workshop and enjoying delicious refreshments that you all put together. It was one of our best events yet! campaign to raise money for Samson’s vet bills and custom SPIRIT is O.K. and We’re Helping Others Be O.K. Too! hoof boots ended in October SPIRIT hosted Greg Kersten and his O.K. Corral Series for with great success! Thanks to a 3-day seminar on developing EAL and EAP activities for everyone who gave and families. Greg founded EAP and shared his wisdom and everyone who helped to knowledge from 20+ years experience observing horses spread the word far and wide! and herd behavior and working with at risk families and Thanks to you we raised over troubled youths. It's too much wisdom to include in this $1,600! Most importantly, newsletter but we will share it through our sessions and activities! Want to get the O.K.