By Colleen Cheechalk | Executive Director
Dear friends,
As I am writing this report to you today, I am filled with a sense of gratitude that I have never felt before in my life. A dream I had back in 2011 has become a reality, a dream I thought that would always remain just that...a dream.
When I returned to school in late 2010, I had decided to work on a second undergraduate degree rather than a Masters. After becoming so involved in Equine Assisted Learning and Equine Assisted Psychotherapy, I was drawn to social issues for obvious reasons, so I declared my major in Social Psychology. I took a class in Terror Management Theory, which opened my eyes to a whole new world...the effects of PTSD on Veterans in combat, and the psychological aftermath of acts of terrorism, and real and man-made disasters. It defined my studies, and become my world.
PTSD is devastating, and horses can help minimize the effects. Through our understanding of the horses behavior and herd dynamics, we learn about the horses social and behavioral patterns, which can in turn, teach us about our own behaviors. Our goals for the Willis Ashley Foley Jr. Warrior and War Horse program is to assist United States Veterans and their families with tools to cope with trauma and stress resulting from combat, long term depression, PTSD and reintegration issues, and by reestablishing life skills and readjustment into civilian life by immersing them into carefully designed horse guided interactions.
Because of your support, today we filed the paperwork with NYS to create the Willis Ashley Foley Jr. Warrior and War Horse program as a stand alone non-profit project under the umbrella of Borrowed Freedom EAAT, Inc. I was able to send letters today to our area Veterans support agencies and mental health programs, and filled the envelopes with the literature they need to begin enrolling up to 16 Veterans and their families in the program. A program that they will be able to access at no cost. They will have up to 12 sessions of carefully developed group equine assisted programming facilitated by a highly credentialed and certified team. And because of the incredible support we received from VM Ware employees, and the other amazing donors during our Globalgiving.org microproject, I was overwhelmed and inspired to do even more, so am personally delivering sessions for an additional 8 participants, and sponsoring the administrative costs for it. Needless to say, it was a pretty awe inspiring, life changing day for me...and I hope this day sets in motion the opportunity for hundreds of Veterans to feel the same way incredible joy I have in my heart, this year, and in the years to come.
We owe our servicemen and servicewomen a world of support, and its support that is sadly lacking. You showed us that you feel the same, that we need to do more, help more, and create a community of support for our heroes. We are so grateful that we are able to bring our horses to these incredible protectors of liberty, and so grateful to share this journey with you!
Warmly and gratefully,
Colleen and the Borrowed Freedom team.
Links:
By Colleen Cheechalk | Executive Director
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
