The 2017 Summer term is officially in the books! Even with the flooding, heat, and humidity, we had a fun and busy term.
While Spring and Fall terms tend be heavy on individual riding lessons, Winter and Summer terms focus more on group riding and unmounted lessons. A handful of our students, those who we believe would lose significant progress during the 3 month layoff, still had individual riding lessons, but that load was significantly lighter overall. Trying to teach 15+ separate riding lessons per day in the Summer heat would be brutal for everyone involved, especially our horses.
In order to conserve human and horsepower, the Barn offered four distinct group riding lessons this Summer. For these groups, we partnered our students by similar age, from preschoolers to high school students. The younger groups had different themes each week, such as the wild West or a Hawaiian luau, while the oldest group worked on an art project for the ground portion of their lessons.
The Barn also hosted several unmounted camps. A group from JBS visited us Monday mornings during term. We had a blast grooming horses, visiting the small animals, and fishing together. Every Thursday morning, we hosted a job-skills training camp for several of our teenage students. Each student had their own consistent task to complete each and every week, which ranged from deep-grooming to cleaning feed and water buckets. They also had a variable task that would change from week to week and included chores like mucking stalls or doing yard work. Their instructor, Ellen, introduced them to different soft skills such as courtesy, punctuality, and initiation. Other unmounted groups included Social Skills and JAYC, both of which we typically offer year-round.
In addition to all these weekly groups, we had several visits from our friends at Mitchell’s Place, Urban Kids, Grace House, Jessie’s Place, and the Amelia Center. In June, both our Student Banquet and the third annual Take the Reins Run took place. Needless to say, the Barn was a very busy place this Summer!
It is important to note that we could not have served so many kids without the help of an amazing crew of Summer interns. All of our interns were great not only at assisting in lessons and camps, but also at stepping in and completing the long list of daily and weekly chores that come with operating a barn. It’s not easy mucking stalls when you are sweat-soaked and exhausted after an 8-hour day, but the interns never once complained. Thank you interns all for your hard work and dedication this past Summer, we appreciate each and every one of you!
This was possibly our most successful Summer yet. We’re thrilled we got to share it with all of our wonderful students, parents, volunteers, and interns. The Barn is already gearing up for the Fall term, and everyone here is doing our best to ensure this Fall will be just as fun and successful as the Summer.
-Connor