Hope for Heroes Equine Therapy, located at 14528 Avis Lane SE in Yelm, will receive $70,000 in federal funding to help expand services at the non-profit.
The grant award, announced on Sept. 22, was sponsored by U.S. Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal, and Marilyn Strickland, D-Tacoma, who led the charge.
Hope for Heroes offers a therapeutic solution to veterans and active duty service members with post-traumatic stress disorder or other trauma through horseback riding and familiarizing themselves with one of the more-than 10 four-legged companions housed at the organization.
Hope for Heroes manager Bob Woelk said it’s wonderful to be receiving the grant as it has been a “year in coming.” With the grant secured, Hope for Heroes Equine Therapy hired its first full-time employee, who serves as head instructor for classes at the center.
“That helps stabilize our staffing because relying on 100% volunteers is challenging at times,” Woelk said. “People have things happen, and they need to put food on their table, so they can’t give us all the time they’d like to get us. Having a full-time person here to teach the classes is a big plus.”
In addition to hiring a full-time employee, Woelk said funding will also help pay for the general expenses of the horses and maintaining the property. He said, while he’s thrilled to be receiving this grant, Hope for Heroes will still rely on community support as the grant covers “less than half” of the organization’s annual budget.
Woelk noted that it costs around $150,000 to maintain and run Hope for Heroes Equine Therapy each year, with close to $100,000 going toward maintaining the horses.
Hope for Heroes Equine Therapy offers classes on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays to both retired veterans and active duty service members, but does not offer its services to the general public. Woelk said people interested in taking classes can contact him at 360-485-8223 for further information regarding the therapeutic classes.
Participants attend one class per week in small groups of five members, and each session lasts around an hour and a half. Woelk said participants come in once a week for eight weeks.
Woelk thanked Strickland and Gluesenkamp Perez for their efforts in making the grant a reality.
“They were both very supportive and interested in coming out to visit with us and seeing what we do to understand the reason for this. We have a big community of veterans here. The local population is made up of 10% veterans here, and a lot of them have PTSD, are suicidal and need this kind of help,” Woelk said. “The population we’re serving is in very great need. We are serving about 40 participants a week in our program, and out of that a third of them are suicidal. Over 80% of them do have severe post-traumatic stress.”
“Being a horse owner and interacting with the animals is what we like to lead these veterans towards,” Woelk continued. “So many veterans are wrestling with uncontrollable anxiety. What we’re doing here is through the horses. The horses are teaching them how to re-learn to self manage their anxiety level, so they can interact successfully with the horses.”
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Go to http://www.hope4heroesconsulting.org/ to learn more about the organization.
