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From the Director's Stall

With 2009 winding down, we are fortunate enough to be able to look forward to 2010!

It has been a tough year financially for everyone — including G.A.I.T. Most of the year we were behind on our bills, but we *did* eventually manage to pay them all. Not only did several grants come in late in the fall, but — thanks to all the extra fundraising events and to our wonderful volunteers, staff, riders and the riders’ families who helped out at these fundraising events — our bills are now all caught up. We also have you, our members, to thank for helping us through this very difficult year with your donations. Thanks to all of you, we are ready to move forward to 2010!

G.A.I.T was also busy creating several new very exciting programs which we began this summer and fall. An “Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy” program for teens at risk of drug and alcohol abuse was put in place in July and continued for 8 weeks. The licensed mental health professional is associated with Newton Memorial Hospital and the clients were from her group therapy sessions which were already in place. The use of the horse for interactive communication and behavioral feedback showed positive results in much less time and with much less angst for the teens involved.

Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy:
Good for the horse...
Good for the participant!

Another new and very successful program introduced this fall is the Rider-to-Leader program. We have a rider who has been coming to G.A.I.T. since he was 3 years old. He is now 17 years old and 6 feet tall! He is quite a good rider so we thought we would challenge this young man who has autism to see what else he could learn. His story is on the front page of this issue.

It is because of these educational, healthy programs that we see the quickest changes in our participants. That is exciting!

And our biggest news this quarter is that G.A.I.T. passed the
NARHA accreditation, making this our 11th consecutive year of being a
Premier Accredited Center! We are proud to continue to be a Premier
Accredited Riding Center in this area for people with special needs.

Thank you for being such a big part of the programs here at G.A.I.T.! With your support, encouragement and participation in our fundraisers, we are excited to begin 2010!

In This Winter Issue!

Welcome!

The Director's Stall

Special Announcements!

Thanks to Our Members and Sponsors!

Volunteer's Corner