It has been a pleasure to work with such an amazing organization! Top notch volunteers changing kids lives alongside these beautiful horse healers!
My wife and I are anonymous donors supporting this great organization because we have seen first hand the difference they make!
Kim and all of the amazing volunteers at Happiness Through Horses are making an incredible difference to everyone they encounter. They teach their students valuable life skills by showing them how to connect with the horses and other animals. This helps build confidence and their classes also provide the kids emotional coping methods.
I first met Kim Swaney, the director of Happiness Through Horses, at a fashion show. She told me about her organization and how she was wanting to help get the word out about stopping suicide with children in our communities. She said she wants to help kids and their families that are struggling with horses by teaching them about horses and how horses will listen to all your troubles and help them feel better.
She was right. My grandson and his mother moved out here shortly after I spoke with Kim and he was very much an introvert and really need some help. So we took him out to the ranch and he just blossomed and it was as though he was meant to be a cowboy all along. He was only 4 years old when he started out at the ranch.
Now I am a Board Member and will always support this organization as my family has been affected by suicide and I want to help spread the word and help families with coping and hopefully stop suicides.
Previous Stories
My oldest daughter moved to Colorado a few years ago with her son. My grandson was 4 years old at the time. He was struggling with communicating with other people. He wouldn't look at people or talk to someone that he didn't know and even those that he did know.
We met Kim Swaney and she talked with my daughter and me about Happiness Through Horses and that may be working with the horses might help him to open up.
My experience with Happiness Through Horses is a unique story. When I was introduced to HTH it was through a horse trainer that inquired about offering a donation to help the non-profit. Loving horses, the idea of supporting a local organization & a tax write off was a win-win! At the time I was on top of the world. Great career, great friends, traveling and being able to basically buy whatever I wanted. I thought I had it all. I couldn't have been farther from the truth.
When the COVID shut down happened, it destroyed my business. No longer able to go out and buy lunches, dinners & drinks for my 'friends' really showed me my true reality. I'll skip those very painful details and move onto the beautiful learnings that came to be. Yes, I'm getting too what HTH offers...bear with me.
One evening I found my arm in the middle of the jaws of a Great Dane and a Cane Corso. It wasn't pretty and living alone I needed help. At the time my friendship with Kim was still in the business phase. I was sitting on the floor crying when I get a call from Kim to discuss some marketing. My pride tried to cover my tears, but Kim has a gift & she recognized in a minute that I needed a friend. Less than an hour later my front door opened, and Kim & Chris Swaney walked in. Over the next month’s Kim would invite me to the Happiness Ranch. It was disguised in ways of 'helping' on the ranch, but in truth she was using her therapy, peace and understanding that is the essence of the Happiness Through Horses. I watched as she helped so many kids in their worst moments. In utilizing horse therapy, she provides a safe place of comfort. In the mix of learning, assisting with the horses & having no pressure to speak of their pain inside. One could easily see the transformation happening. HTH utilizes the natural balance a horse brings out in you. Providing a haven and access to horses that most, if not all, of these kids wouldn't normally have access to is amazing. It humbled me watching these kids come to HTH confused, feeling broken & sad. Only sometimes even in as little as an hour later they'd start to smile and feel appreciated, feel heard. I too shared those same feelings. I realized one evening while at the HTH ranch watching a flurry of horses being attended to, hearing laughter of the kids & parents alike. That this nonprofit was an honor to be a part of & it was so much more than a 'tax write-off'. In fact, HTH saved my life. In all the days of my financial freedom I never felt anything close to how it felt to be on the Happiness Through Horses Ranch. Every single cent donated went to helping every possible kid in need. I watched Kim with pure exhaustion look at me and say, "If only I could do more, if only I could help more kids." Not once complaining about her car that was broken down or having cracked hands from pushing ice chunks around in the horse’s winter water so it wouldn't freeze. If only there were more 'Kim's' in this world we could knock a dent in the teen suicide rate. I'm blessed to have found such an honorable nonprofit! One that firsthand as a donor I not only got to see how my donation was applied, but I personally got to utilize the horse therapy for myself and more importantly for my daughter in her time of need.
I hope in me sharing my experience with Happiness Through Horses that my message finds and speaks to the heart of all those in need of HTH horse therapy.
https://www.happinesshorses.com/
https://youtu.be/IINiFuMj0lc
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOtJLTd0sLxAmSQuHH4JUsw
Over the years, Happiness Through Horses has been an active community nonprofit in Longmont that focuses on programs for youth that help improve self-esteem and mental health through equine programs. Their mission to help heal the hearts of struggling youth through bonding with horses is one that fuels their passion to connect children with horses in various therapy and leadership programs.
My daughter has loved horses since she could sit up! She's been riding since she 3, and was able to attend a camp sponsered by happiness through horses this past summer! She learned so much courage and hope from all of the wonderful people and activities offered at the camp. We found ourselves upon hard times awhile back and lost our horse and animals, this place graced us with a camp that was much needed! She faced fears and was instilled with so many positive values! We recently donated after some hard work and can now say we went from client to donor in hopes to give another youth the chance to enjoy the love of horses. I believe this program is really going to make a difference in so many lives!