Community Spotlight: HORSEPOWER Brings Healing Power of Horses to North Carolinians in Need
By: Darci Miller
PUEBLO, Colo. – If there’s one thing Jan Clifford knows, it’s that there’s a special connection between horses and kids.
She knew it when she was growing up on a farm, riding the pony she says was “close to a best friend” around the pastures and woods.
She saw it when she lived in Texas and worked at an accounting service, hosting weekend events at a barn and inviting kids out to be around the horses.
So when Clifford moved to North Carolina in 1984, she wanted to do something for children.
“I wanted to have a place where kids could come, and they could learn about horses, and they could forget about all their problems,” Clifford said. “When I moved to North Carolina, I started looking at doing something for at-risk kids, and then it expanded to at-risk and also kids with disabilities.”
Clifford founded HORSEPOWER Therapeutic Learning Center in High Point, North Carolina, in 1995.
The nonprofit organization is an accredited center that provides therapeutic horseback riding and equine-assisted therapy to more than 300 individuals with disabilities, as well as non-disabled students, each year.
According to its website, HORSEPOWER provides both challenges and rewards to people with physical, intellectual, emotional and social disabilities, including multiple sclerosis, autism, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease and Down syndrome, as well as victims of physical, mental or emotional abuse. They also offer leadership and team-building programs for able-bodied riders.
All of HORSEPOWER’s instructors are certified and well-versed on the different disabilities. The organization matches up horses with different movement with people who need that type of movement or connection.
“We group people together with likeabilities, whether they’re ambulatory or nonverbal or have some kind of emotional trauma, and we set up classes with three or four people in a class,” Clifford said. “And the goal might be to make eye contact, or make complete sentences, or be able to count or do colors. There’s all different types of things you can use the horses for.
“Everybody that rides gets the physical benefit, because when you’re on your horse, you’re doing the same type of movement as if you’re walking. But they also get the emotional connection that you get with a horse when you spend time around them. So it’s a therapeutic relationship, but it’s also a therapeutic venue, where you’re outdoors, you’re with great volunteers, you have the connection with the horse, and it’s just very healing for everybody involved.”
In 2021 and beyond, the PBR is partnering with local businesses in the cities it visits. HORSEPOWER is the league’s fourth community spotlight as the Unleash The Beast comes to the Greensboro Coliseum for the PBR Union Home Mortgage Invitational, presented by Bass Pro Shops, on Oct. 9-10.
Working on a farm is a far cry from Clifford’s prior life at an accounting service, but she says now she can’t imagine doing anything else.
In 1998, Clifford and the HORSEPOWER team worked with a little girl whose doctors said had no brain activity. Her parents would bring her to ride so she could still have some quality of life.
“She started to kick her horse to make her walk,” Clifford said. “When we would stop, we would pull back on her arms and say, ‘Whoa,’ and when we’d walk, we’d take her legs and tap the side of the horse. So we were standing and talking, and she started kicking her horse to make it walk. And I’m like, ‘She knows that when she kicks her horse, that it’s going to make her go.’ And so it was just amazing. The parents are crying because they felt like they were really doing something for their daughter, and we’re crying. You never know what kind of connection the riders are going to have.”
On Friday, HORSEPOWER is hosting Keyshawn Whitehorse at one of its classes. Whitehorse will learn to be a side-walker, a volunteer who walks alongside the horse to keep the rider safe and incorporate the lesson plan.
“Being in therapy riding is kind of like an addiction because you see so many amazing things, and people come out here to volunteer, and they get so many good feelings from being here that they feel good about themselves,” Clifford said. “So everybody that comes is walking away getting something out of the experience.”
That, of course, includes Clifford herself.
“Every aspect of it is rewarding,” she said. “Somebody asked me how you start it, how you do it, all that kind of stuff, and I said, ‘You come in thinking that you’re going to work harder than you ever have in your life, harder than you ever could imagine, but feel better about your life than you ever could imagine.’”
HORSEPOWER worked with the PBR back in 1998, selling ropes and handing out fliers at an event. Clifford is thrilled to rekindle the partnership in Greensboro this year and hopes that any horse people in the crowd come forward to get involved.
“We always need volunteers to help in a class, and a lot of people don’t come because they don’t like a particular thing,” she said. “But we’re a farm. We have horses to feed, fences to fix, grass to mow. I mean, there’s everything. If you have a talent or skill, and you have a desire to help people, we have something that we could use your help with.”
© 2021 PBR Inc. All rights reserved.