BraveHearts heals through horses
BraveHearts is a nonprofit organization based in Illinois, which was started more than 20 years ago as a therapeutic riding program to help disabled children, military Veterans and their families.
All Veterans and family members are served at no charge.
Therapeutic riding lessons are offered year-round, and the staff provides therapy every night of the week.
Trail to Zero
One of the many things the nonprofit does to raise awareness for the plight of Veterans is to put on the Trail to Zero, a 20-mile trail ride held at various cities across the country.
Around eight to 15 riders from BraveHearts, along with local mounted police units and staff from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) take part in the ride.
These rides are called Trail to Zero because, statistically, 20 U.S. Veterans every day, on average, commit suicide due to post-traumatic stress disorder.
The goal is to try to reduce this number to zero.
Getting involved
BraveHearts depends on a score of dedicated people – staff and volunteers – who believe in the organization’s mission and goals.
One of these people is David House, a member of the nonprofit’s board of directors.
House was introduced to BraveHearts through the cutting horse industry.
Although his career was in the oil and gas industry, he always liked horses. He grew up in southwest Arkansas and his family owned horses. He has lived in Tulsa, Okla. for 50 years.
“When I left home to go to school, I had to sell all of my horses and didn’t have any horses for the next 40 years,” House shares. “Then I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to be reintroduced to horses, and they’ve been an important part of my life for the past 15 years.”
House enjoys riding cutting horses as an amateur competitor.
“When BraveHearts came to Fort Worth, Texas for their cutting demonstration and competition four years ago, my trainer Andy Sherrerd was involved as a volunteer, which is how I found out about BraveHearts,” House says.
He notes Sherrerd understands horses and the importance of the animals in helping people heal. Sherrerd has been an active supporter of BraveHearts by helping secure horses for the program.
“BraveHearts became very special to me because I have a nephew who came home from deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq 100 percent disabled,” House remarks. “Organizations that have figured out how to help Veterans soon became very important to me.”
Diving in
House notes, over the years, he has become more heavily involved in the program and has purchased horses specifically for the organization. He also handed over one of his retired cutting horses to the program
“BraveHearts does an incredibly good job at helping Veterans reclaim their lives, and this is very special to me because I’ve seen what happens to people when they don’t have access to these types of programs,” he says.
“I have talked with scores of Veterans who have been through or are still active in BraveHearts programs, and they will tell you they wouldn’t be here today without this program – they would have taken their own lives,” he adds. “There’s nothing more powerful than a statement like that. It really gets your attention.”
House was on a prayer call a few months ago illustrating this point.
“The Vet who was on the call said he was able to put his gun down after he went out to the BraveHearts farm and spent time with his horse,” House shares.
Looking to expand
“BraveHearts President and Chief Executive Officer Meggan Hill-McQueeney and her team have figured it out, realizing what it takes to save Veterans with an incredibly successful program. The only thing they can’t do is get to everybody who needs their help,” House says.
He notes his long-term goal as a board member is to expand BraveHearts to everyone who needs it – as far west as California and east as Florida.
“I spent 50 years in the oil and gas business in various capacities, and in this business, it always came down to capital allocation,” he says. “If you allocate your capital in the right place, you’ll have a successful company. If you allocate capital to the wrong projects, you will fail.”
“We just need an opportunity to allocate more capital to BraveHearts,” he adds. “Meggan is incredible. She has the vision and comes to it with a horse perspective that is so important for people who are trying to expand programs at BraveHearts.”
House notes the challenge has been raising enough money to expand, which is their current focus. He points out the BraveHearts budget needs to be nearly ten-fold of what it is right now.
He believes it will help if more people learn about the BraveHearts mission and success, as nearly everyone who knows a Veteran realizes the issues they face is a universal problem.
“BraveHearts is unique. There are hundreds of equine therapy groups and many of them help Veterans, but in terms of effectiveness I think BraveHearts is in a league of their own,” House states. “They understand how to help these people. This is a very spiritual organization, with prayer chains going around daily. There are so many positive interventions that emanate from BraveHearts on a daily basis.”
Heather Smith Thomas is a corresponding writer for the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
