Feel Good Friday - Volunteering is Good!

When I first moved with my family to Kentucky last summer, I admit I felt adrift. My town is a small, rural, humble place in the heart of Kentucky. Beautiful, yes indeed. Bucolic is an apt descriptive. A lovely place to live.

However, living in a small, rural town does have its challenges. How is a highly driven graphic designer supposed to earn a living in a town that doesn't have it's own daily newspaper? Or an Applebee's? Or a mall? I've always been employed, either self or otherwise, and typically I would meet people and establish friendships based on my circle of professional acquaintences. This just was not going to happen here.

By a stroke of luck, or whatever your want to call it, my daughter's teacher at the local elementary school recently started a riding therapy center right here in this small town. Last summer during the class orientation she was avidly looking for volunteers to help at the riding center and I knew right then that I had found someplace to give me an anchor to this new and foreign community, an avenue that would fulfil my desire to be needed, and a way in which I could use my skills and my time to help others.

The R.E.A.T.H. Center is a non-profit horse therapy riding center that has grown in the past year from having one horse and a pasture, to 2 horses and a riding ring and a stable. Most of the facility has been built through generous donations of time and materials, and certainly the determiniation of the founders of the center. If you ever wonder where I am on Thursday evenings, this is the place.