CHUM Therapeutic Riding

We serve children and adults with disabilities locally and from over two hours away utilizing the movement of the horse and the equine environment to give hope, facilitate goals, and change lives. Our program is blessed to have a heated (through donations of wood for our wood boiler) indoor arena (built on donations from Wick Buildings, Anco Products and more in 2007 and an expansion in 2017) as well as an outdoor arena (replaced with a memorial fund donation 2024) and trails. Home Depot assisted with a much needed horse barn makeover in 2019! We serve on average 150 families each week with riders from 14 months to senior citizens throughout the year. Changes parents have seen in their children which they credit the horse program for can range from increased appropriate behaviors, confidence, even hand writing to life changing events such as walking, talking, and improved health when other medical professionals have given up hope of observing. Families of veterans have stated peaceful changes in those with PTSD with improved function and family quality of life, and adults with other disabilities have increased the quality of life through improved independence and health with decreased risk factors such as risk of falls and increased respiratory function. We have participated in 18 research projects since the program’s inception in 1999 with Michigan State University, University of Michigan, Central Michigan University, Baker College, and Washington State University-St Louis. We have shared what we have learned through the years at local, state, regional, national and even the international congress in Germany in 2009 and again in Ireland in 2018 as conference presenters.
In addition to the therapeutic riding and therapy treatment sessions by our occupational therapist we take horses off site to bring their gifts to others in the community. Over the years we have done so much more than take horses and riders to be included in competitions at the local and state level and demonstrations within the communities we serve. We have taken horses to the Veterans Administration Campus in Battle Creek to work with the high school Cadets at the MI Youth Challenge Academy for troubled teens, we have shared our horses at several schools in the Tri-County area with their special needs classes and others like animal science and school special events. Our horses have gone to parks for other special needs organizations, special events for Capital Area Downs Syndrome Association and others, and given last rides and fulfilled dreams as some of our friends have gone home to heaven. Every year we go to the Upper Peninsula of MI to teach in Dickenson County for a week-long program in Norway, MI. In 2017, we were invited to bring CHUM Therapeutic Riding as a satellite site to a farm in southwestern Indiana where we visit several times a year as well as help them develop a program for them. Our program is in its 25th year of blessed work. and through the generosity of so many we have met so many goals while we meet so many needs of those who come! We continue to be blessed by the communities and families we serve, committed to supporting and helping CHUM grow through their gifts, resources, and fund raisers to sustain services. While most of our large projects have been met we have goals yet for our future. Looking at sustainability, we would like to have funds enough in endowment to ensure having quality paid staffing in the future. Our founder started this mission from her heart and has watched God grow this program to help so many over the past 25 years. We would like to ensure the program can offer quality staffing for the next 25 years! The founder's position of not only Administrator but lead Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor and lead Occupational Therapist moving into the future needs to be reasonably compensated, beyond a mission of the heart. From a faciltiy standpoint the playground that the families all use while their family member is in session needs replacement in the very near future. Approximately $25,000 is projected to replace the playground structures. The pasture fencing etc needs upgrading and replacing for the safety and welfare of our horses! From heavy cedar posts, fencing wire etc, gate, footing solutions by the wetter areas, and labor costs, we are expecting costs to be about $25,000.
Community support, both big and small has always been a huge part of CHUM being able to provide these services that mean so much. Between helping us expand the arena to put in an accessible bathroom and therapy room with their matching grant and our annual fund raisers help with routine needs to sustain the program and looking for our future funding, we ask that you give heartfelt consideration to CHUM Therapeutic Riding to assist in funding the much needed areas specified above. This program means so much to so many and we need your help to secure its future quality and accessibility of services. Thank you for all you do for the communities you serve. If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at 517-204-0974. Please visit www.chumtherapy.net or CHUM Therapeutic Riding's Facebook page to get to know us more.