Provide Care for a Differently Able Child's Pony

There are lots of ways you can help Personal Ponies Ltd and we hope that by the time you have read through most of our website, you believe in our program and the work we do. No organization can survive without funding and Personal Ponies is no exception. Personal Ponies is unique in that it is truly an all volunteer organization. No one is paid a single penny for the work they do.

That means that ALL of the funds we receive from our supporters are spent carefully and wisely. Your dollars go to the REAL work of expanding our programs and benefiting our ponies. We encourage you to learn more about our special funds and to designate exactly how you would like your funds spent. In addition to our General Fund, Personal Ponies also has two well-established “Funds”:

PERSONAL PONIES heads into years of providing small UK Shetland ponies to children and adults with special needs, we are launching a new project to help us update one of our volunteer farms specifically for our "Senior Pony Citizens". Our retired ponies hold a special place in our hearts and having the funds to make sure they receive the best we can provide in their later years is a very small thank you for all they have given to our program.

Our ponies work their whole lives being in service and sometimes that involves traveling from one state to another and one family or program to another giving all the love they can. As with elderly humans, these OLDER ponies deserve the right to retire where they do not have to work anymore and are free to just enjoy being ponies, the sunlight, fresh grassy fields and "swinging on the garden gate". Our ponies are hardy and healthy and having a dedicated center where they can live is important to us.

Right now this dedicated center is in NH. It is time to update this facility and to build up our funds to make sure we are able to provide all that is necessary in the way of care. To make this all happen we need the help from wonderful people like YOU. We need stalls, lighting and water. Right now we are working on a larger fenced area with individual paddocks for some and need help with the materials to create these. In addition, we also need heated buckets and winter water-proof blankets and help with the daily costs for their feed which is all fresh herbs, vegetables and hay.  All of these things are very much needed for these “senior ponies”.  We need to honor the ponies years of service and the care they have bestowed on others. Please open your heart to helping Personal Ponies create this home and making sure we provide the BEST home for these RETIRED ponies.

Since 1986, Personal Ponies primary mission has been to bring MAGIC into people's-especially children's lives; to bring smiles and joy in a most unusual way.

We believe (and we’ve seen it happen over and over again!) that the lives of anyone with special needs are immeasurably enriched by connecting with a small equine companion in a "Personal" way- so this is what we do!

Our ponies are uniquely suited in temperament and size to small children, folks in wheelchairs, hospital rooms, veterans centers, senior centers or anyone who would enjoy interacting with a smaller equine in a more "intimate" manner - eye to eye!

Personal Ponies wants to reach out to anyone who may be "differently able" no matter what the condition or situation. Our ponies are roving ambassadors and are taken wherever people can benefit from interacting with them. We say our ponies started out as ponies for children with special needs but the truth is we all have special needs and there is a child inside us all

Core Values & Key Concepts

Personal Ponies is first and foremost about caring. That IS the Personal Ponies message for all times and places! Personal Ponies’ mission is carefully defined and The “Commandments of Leadership” are to be ever remembered and followed.

Those of you involved in Personal Ponies create a physical place, a “personal” place and a place of joy for ponies and differently able people. That is the core purpose of Personal Ponies.

The program, entirely volunteer — no salaries, no big buildings, no fancy offices, no anything except the caring and determined efforts on the part of everyone to love and hug on our ponies and insure their care and safety while performing their jobs.

Key Concepts

Personal Ponies was founded by Marianne Alexander on November 3, 1986 and was originally created to benefit a small, differently able child. It is a well known saying that “the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man”. At the time there seemed to have been a very real lack of attention to the needs of young children with special needs and there was an absence of suitable small-sized equines bred just for them. Surely “the outside of a small pony would be good for the inside of a small child who is differently able.”

Personal Ponies is now represented around the country and our dream is that every community will have access to “Personal Ponies” through therapeutic centers who can provide safe, loving, supervised interactions for our ponies to work their magic. These "special needs people" could be children, seniors, at risk teens, persons in drug recovery programs, veterans-anyone for whom these magical ponies can bring smiles & joy.

Below are some key concepts about our program:

• Personal Ponies is based on the concept of CARING.
• The Personal Ponies program is based on community service.
• Personal Ponies  will continue to be an advocate in educating the therapeutic community and the public about the value of a small pony in the lives of special needs humans. While horseback riding  plays a valuable role in therapy work, there is also therapeutic  value in being able to look into the eyes of a pony  across a hospital bed, from a wheelchair and to be able to groom, lead, bathe and sometimes just talk to a kind, patient, nonjudgmental pony face. We've seen the magic that can occur during these interactions.
• The Personal Ponies program is committed to promote the breeding, registration and disbursement of information about the UK Shetland Pony and manage and maintain our The Shetland Registry (TSR) database for all ponies and their caretakers.
• The Personal Ponies program is based on a high bar of excellence and included in that is superior care for every pony in our program. All aspects of pony-keeping are a priority at all times. It is incumbent on us to be their keepers and advocates. As part of our agreement, there is no allowance at all for anything other than the above. When care is lacking, our ponies will be removed at the National Director’s discretion.
• Personal Ponies is a 100 percent volunteer organization which means no one is paid a penny for what they do. That means ALL contributions to Personal Ponies go to running our programs in breeding, training and offering these special ponies to the therapeutic community.
• Our breeding centers are the foundation for our being able to maintain and provide these unique UK Shetland based on the Londonderry lines with their kind, intelligent temperaments and robust health. Unlike the "miniature horse" they are built and behave more like tiny draft horses vs. high stepping show ponies. For more detail, see our Breeding and why UK Shetlands? tabs.
• Personal Ponies is a LEARNING ORGANIZATION. We have been and will always be a learning organization. This means that at times our decisions will show themselves as being wonderfully crafted and at other times, we have lessons to learn and need to find a better way. We will keep learning and growing.

Welcome to the World of Personal Ponies

Making magic for children with special needs doesn’t happen by itself. The kind of magic we make at Personal Ponies takes the caring hearts and helping hands of each and every one of our volunteers. Our volunteers are truly our recipe for magic.

People often ask us how many volunteers make up our organization. That is an impossible number to quantify. Volunteers do everything that makes our organization possible. There is an endless list of things caring people do. For example, this website is maintained by a volunteer. Others help with preparation of marketing materials, and keeping databases. Volunteers help in transporting ponies, trainers donate time to train ponies, and still others help with special events and or with fundraising. We also have young volunteers that come and brush or hug foals to help socialize them or do their community service hours with one of our local families. Whether it is for one day or ten years, everyone that contributes is an integral part of the whole and is part of a number that cannot be measured.

Although our goal is to provide a small Shetland pony to be a friend and companion for children who are differently able, there is indeed more. The purpose of what we do may set out to affect the children we serve but it affects all of us both emotionally and intellectually as well. Many of our volunteers have commented that the opportunity to serve not only the children but to be part of a larger intention of caring has been extraordinary in its own respect.

The pages in this section are created to provide our volunteers with various forms and policies and other pertinent information that might help them carry out their activities more efficiently. Anything you cannot find, please contact any of the National Directors for help.

Thank you to all our caring volunteers.

YOU ARE THE HEART AND SOUL OF PERSONAL PONIES!

“…I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes to us from those whom we do not know…that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being and unites all living things.”

- Lewis Hyde, “The Gift”