Thank you for allowing my boys to volunteer for Champ’s Heart.
Zac at 16 is exploring his interests and has only been serious about horses since this past fall. He’s come a long way and learned a lot. Champ’s Heart has been the icing on the cake for him to see how other people respond to horses, especially the kids.
Nathan has never been enthusiastic about animals. This time last year we went to our first 4-H animal club meeting, mainly for goats. Twice during the meeting he asked me why I’d dragged him along. He found out that the kids in the club raise other animals, and he decided he could raise a rabbit. I raised rabbits for 4-H when I was a child, so I knew I could help him. We found someone who had baby rabbits available. He picked out two males (two different breeds). When they were old enough to come home with us, we drove to Shelley to get them. The breeder had a goat that had just had kidded. She put one of those newborns in Nathans arms and he was in love. We didn’t get that kid, but he does now have his own doe that he’s raising as a 4-H project. About the time he started volunteering with your group, he was asking about riding Ginger. She’s not the horse I wanted him to start with, but y’all provided the answer when you put him on one of your horses. That was HUGE for him. I don’t see him ever loving horses like Zac does, but Nathan continues to surprise me. And then there was last week when he had a child on your pony that had a ring in his hand playing the game. He asked the child what color he wanted to put it on, and the child answered him. The parents were in tears. Nathan said they told him it was the first time the child had ever talked. He was blown away by the power of what he was helping with. I think your program changes the volunteers as much as it does the participants. So as his mom…thank you.