Mounting efforts

Jenny Marder

The program that teaches physically and mentally disabled people to

horseback ride was forced to shut down last month and lay off its

only full-time employee.

Two private grants totaling $30,000 -- one from Boeing Co. and one

from Pimco -- fell through, forcing the Therapeutic Riding Center to

let instructor Darlene Harman go. Since she was let go on Feb. 1, the

sound of hoofbeats has been temporarily silenced.

But thanks to an outpouring of devoted volunteers, who have opened

their wallets, their schedules and their hearts to save the center,

it looks like riders will be back in the saddle by May 1. Dave

Quatman, president of the center’s board of directors, said it just

became too difficult to shoulder Harman’s $30,000 salary. Without

cutting it, the center would have had to shut down permanently, he

said.

“It just got to be too much,” Quatman said. “We couldn’t stay open

and pay [that salary].”

Harman worked full-time at the center, where she managed the

program’s bookkeeping and public relations, taught all the lessons,

worked with the families and formed close bonds with the riders.

Cutting her position has saved the center financially, but has

required a fervent commitment from a team of volunteers and a drastic

reshuffling of the program.

Full-time volunteers such as Sam Refice, who has worked with the

center for three years, are at the barn every day getting the horses

exercised, fed and bathed. Four volunteers are in the process of

completing a course that will allow them to instruct a class once a

week. Each class must have one trained instructor and several

additional volunteers.

And a group of women at the Huntington Beach Equestrian Center,

dubbed the Diamond Angels, have agreed to pay for feed and board for

the center’s five horses.

“They knew we were in trouble,” Quatman said. “They organized

themselves and started collecting money on their own. They said we’re

going to help with overhead and horse expenses to keep your program

alive.”

Cutting Harman’s salary was a difficult, yet necessary move to

save the center, Refice said.

“From just not having that salaried position, we’re fine,” she

said. “Everyone seems to enjoy the idea of an all-volunteer program.

Already, there are a lot of schools across the country who do it and

do it successfully.”

Harman supports the center’s efforts to become a fully

volunteer-based organization.

“I think it absolutely can run,” she said. “Forever -- I don’t

know. I think eventually they should be able to raise the funds to

pay for an instructor again.”

Harman would have liked to have started training volunteers

earlier so that they wouldn’t have had to shut down. As it was, she

had to quit early because she was losing volunteers to the instructor

training courses.

“It got to the point that there wasn’t strong enough volunteer

support,” she said. “My hands were tied. I worked so hard to change

that program to make it as efficient as I could as one person doing

three people’s jobs. I had no choice.”

The Therapeutic Riding Center relies on grants, fundraising

events, individual and corporate donations, and a paltry tuition to

stay within its $70,000 annual operation budget, which includes feed,

shoeing, equipment, vet bills and board for the horses and, before

Feb. 1, Harman’s salary.

The center has already received a $5,000 grant from the Amateur

Athletic Foundation and a $12,000 grant from a tire company in

Cincinnati. Quatman expects to raise $20,000 at the center’s annual

fundraiser on Sunday.

The center is also applying for a $10,000 community development

block grant from the city, a $21,000 grant from the Boeing Co., and a

$10,000 grant from the Boeing Community Employees Fund, said Cathy

Meschuk, grant writer for the center.

“We expect to increase the size and come back stronger than ever,”

Quatman said, who hopes that the center will be able to handle 40

students this year, up from about 30 in 2003.The community is also

doing what it can to restore the struggling program.

On Friday, a group of 14 first-graders donated $600, which will

fund dental care for the horses.

For the past several weeks, Brownie Troop 58 has been canvassing

the city and selling cookies, 1,300 boxes altogether, to raise money

for the horses.

Troop leader Christy Cleugh wanted the girls to learn the

importance of giving in a way that was hands-on enough that they

could understand where there money was going.

“I think the kids need to understand that giving is a part of

life,” Cleugh said. “It’s just such a tangible way to help I hope

that other troops in the area see that these girls are willing to

give for a cause.”

Standing by Rusty, a chestnut gelding, Quatman described the

Therapeutic Riding Center to the Brownies.

“It’s for handicapped boys and girls,” he told them. “When we put

them on the horse, it moves their legs and tendons and helps them

move their body. It helps them get stronger despite their handicap.”

Hailey Hoyt, 6, liked Tidy Cloud the best.

“He kept licking me in the face,” she said.

The children, she added, are happy that the money they raised will

help not only the horses, but other children as well.

Riding horses has both physical and psychological benefits for the

children, Quatman said.

Horses are led by volunteers and trained according to the North

American Rider Handicap Assn.’s guidelines. Volunteers constantly

interact with the riders, who are often very introverted, by telling

them to start and stop the horse, twist their hips, swing their arms

or pick up an object and perform a series of simple exercises.

The natural motion of the horse, which moves the rider’s pelvis in

a way that is similar to walking, helps strengthen the riders muscle

and skeletal structure.

With the faith and love of so many volunteers fueling the center,

Quatman is certain it can do no wrong.

“We want everybody to know that we will be back and that doing

this work is not going to end,” Quatman said. “We will get back and

open the program up again and continue on.”

* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at jenny.marder@latimes.com.