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NOTES FROM Past NEWSLETTERS
Can you help?
Of course you can help! Do you have time to spare? Do you have goods we could use? Do you have money to donate? Any and all of these are ways you can help CHAMP move to the next level. After 20 years of serving our special community the program is bursting at the seams. The time has come to expand, and with your help we can do it!
As we are preparing this newsletter we received some really good news. NorthCountry Federal Credit Union has awarded us a $10,000 matching grant and $8,300 for us to run PSAs (Public Service Announcements) to promote awareness of the CHAMP program and the need for volunteers and funds.
Stop by our booth at the Everything Equine event that will take place at the Champlain Valley Exposition, April 28th and 29th. Some of our volunteers will be staffing the booth while others will be hosting the first Saturday of lessons at Good Hope Equestrian Center. Come and get your CHAMP shirt or hat and help us get the word out about this wonderful program and our Capital Campaign. You can even pick up a fund raising form for our 11th annual trail ride that will take place in September. You can raise funds and ride yourself, be a “ghost” rider, sponsor another rider, or raise funds for lessons for your favorite CHAMP rider.
Ah, spring is in the air and CHAMP is on the road to our next adventure.
Denise White, President
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Fall 2006
Reaching High at CHAMP
by Janet Essman Franz
While instructor Julie Horigan steadies Casper, instructor Mary Willmuth coaches
Amber to reach for the ring that sidewalker Maggie is holding.
Sidewalker Sarah keeps hold of Amber.
Riding horses makes a world of difference for 13-year-old Amber and her grandparents, who care for her. It clearly helps her control her muscles, communicate with others and feel happiness, an emotion she does not often experience.
A traumatic brain injury suffered when she was an infant left Amber physically and cognitively disabled and emotionally withdrawn. She spends most of her time confined to a wheelchair, staring off in to space. She rarely speaks or smiles and often appears depressed and disinterested in her surroundings.
“She drifts off by herself, in her own little world,” said Neil Fay, her grandfather.
On the days she rides with CHAMP, Amber’s demeanor is notably different.
“When I take Amber horseback riding she is smiling and bubbly afterward and she seems to be more focused on what I’m talking about,” Fay said. She communicates better with everybody.”
When Amber began riding with CHAMP three years ago, instructor Mary Willmuth wondered if the program could help her. Amber was completely limp and would not speak to the CHAMP volunteers. “Without people supporting her on both sides she would collapse. She would stare up into space and not communicate with anyone,” said Willmuth, who is Vice President of CHAMP’s board of directors. “I asked her grandparents if she played with anything and they said she did not, she had no toys that she played with.”
Today, Amber sits upright on the horse by herself and holds the reins. She reaches for toys, tells the horse to ‘Go,’ and laughs when the horse picks up speed.
“She became different on the horse,” Willmuth said. “She doesn’t look like the same child.”
Amber is alert and engaged while riding, and she communicates with the horse and CHAMP volunteers.
“She will say ‘trot’ or makes click-click sounds to make the horse go forward. When the horse trots she laughs. You can hear her up and down the arena,” Willmuth said. “She now interacts with us, plays with balls and rings and will reach to grasp a ball and put it in the bucket. The ball makes a sound when it drops in the bucket and she likes that.”
The changes in Amber relate directly to the physical exercise she receives from horseback riding. Sitting atop a moving horse causes Amber to move her body in ways she does not move when she is sitting in her wheelchair. “There are not many things that she can do,” said her grandmother, Carol Fay. “The way the horse walks, it moves her hips like she is walking. The horse’s walk has a four-beat gait, which gives her exercise in her hips and keeps her loose.” She uses her torso to sit upright. Her leg muscles contract and release as she mounts and dismounts. When she reaches for a ball, she extends her shoulders and practices hand-eye coordination.
The exercise also helps Amber emotionally, Carol Fay said. “In the winter when she doesn’t exercise at all, she goes into a little depression. She’s whinier, and she cries. After the first ride in the spring and fall she really likes it. She tells the horse to ‘trot,” and when it does she thinks it’s great. She bounces all over the place. She gets everybody laughing.”
That kind of joy is the point of CHAMP, Willmuth said. “To help an individual with a significant disability, who can’t move around independently, to improve his/her ability to interact and give them confidence, that’s what the program is about,” said Willmuth. “It’s fun to work with a person who was unengaged, who doesn’t interact or have fun, for whom life is a struggle and to see her interacting and having fun.”
Janet Essman Franz writes frequently for Vermont Times and is
vice chair of the Vermont Governors Council on Physical Fitness and Sports |
