July 2020 Newsletter

By: Lindsay Brim

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Crossroads Corral’s 2018 Year in Review

By: Lindsay Brim

2018 has been a year to remember for so many reasons! Upon reflection, we couldn’t envision so many wonderful and exciting things happening for our organization in one year. We could not be more thankful for such an impactful year!

Here are a few highlights:

We MOVED into our new home in Sanford!

This little piece of heaven is the perfect and most tranquil home for our horses and program.

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We won a contest and our logo was placed on a cross-town LYNX bus!

This will certainly help us gain awareness in town.

 

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We were chosen as the Leadership Seminole Class 28 Legacy Project recipient.

54 class members who are leaders in our community are fundraising on behalf of our organization to provide us with a ROOF in our therapy arena, equipped with a fan and lights! This will help us complete sessions regardless or the rain, heat and sun!

Our team GREW!

This year we added one more Mental Health Counselor and 4 Equine Specialists who have been certified for Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and Learning. This will allow us to see even more clients in 2019!!

This year we also welcomed Jenny Arrison as a board member. Jenny brings a wealth of non-profit experience along with a passion for helping youth. We are excited to work with her in 2019 and beyond.

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We received wonderful support through grants and donations

We were able to retain grants from Florida Blue, Helpful Hands Inc, Lawrence E. White Family Foundation and a few other large generous donations from families and foundations in Seminole County. We ended the year with a fun celebration as we were a chosen organization to benefit from a Christmas Charity Gala by the Amsler Family Foundation and received a generous donation to end the year!

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We continued partnerships & programs to make an impact

We continued our partnership with Community Based Care of Central Florida, treating youth who have been abused and suffered trauma and neglect at no charge to those families. We also continued our Veteran program, treating veterans suffering from PTSD and their families at no charge to them.

All of our horses were sponsored in 2018!

This is a huge help to our program expenses as the horse sponsorships help to cover the horses feed and hay, one of our largest expenses!  Moose and Gracie; Sponsored by Pat and Karen Connors, Sadie; Sponsored by John and Velma Geisinger, Toby; Sponsored by the Dannelly Family, Connie; Sponsored by the Van Gundy Family, Buddy; Sponsored by the Sanford Orlando Kennel Club, Dixie; Sponsored by The Siegrist Family and CrossCountry Mortgage and Rhett; Sponsored by 22 Health. Thank you sponsors!!!

 

Final Thoughts

We could not serve the way that we do without the generous support of our community, our incredible volunteers and board of directors, thank you! We are so thankful to be able to offer this life changing work and serve even more people in 2019!

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Crossroads Corral – Radio interview with 105.9 Sunny FM

By: Lindsay Brim

Crossroads Corral Co-founder and Executive Director, Lindsay Brim had an opportunity recently to sit down with Michael Rafferty of 105.9 SunnyFM. Lindsay was able to explain how Equine Assisted Psychotherapy works and our upcoming events!

Take a listen to learn even more about the wonderful work at our corral.

 

What We Do and What We Don’t- Staying in Our Lane

By: Lindsay Brim

There are so many wonderful things to do with horses, but for non-profits it is important that we “stay in our lane”.  I thought it would be helpful to lay it all out in black and white as far as what Crossroads does and does not do.

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What We Do:

  • Equine Assisted Mental Health–  also known as Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP). We provide our sessions to Veterans who suffer from PTSD and their families as well as youth and women who have suffered trauma abuse and neglect. All sessions are conducted by our Licensed Mental Health Professionals and Certified Equine Specialists. All sessions take place on the ground, there is no riding involved. Optimal results achieved in much shorter time frame than traditional therapy.
  • Equine Assisted Learning- these sessions focus on building life skills and are most commonly conducted with youth or business professionals to focus on team work.  Certified Equine Specialists utilize the horses to help clients learn about building confidence, communication, trust, empathy boundaries and more. All sessions take place on the ground, there is no riding involved.
  • Saddle Up Saturday (Fundraiser)- An opportunity for youth to come and learn about horses, we try to schedule these once a quarter
  • Ladies Horsemanship Workshops (Fundraiser)- An opportunity for women to enjoy time on the farm and learn about horses and horsemanship.

What We Don’t Do:

  • Therapuetic Riding- We do not conduct therapeutic riding lessons for individuals with disabilities. While this is incredibly meaningful work, we decided to fill in the gap for mental health.  Why duplicate a service that many other organizations are already doing in Central Florida?
  • Public Riding Lessons- Our horses and team are so busy with therapy that we do not have the time to conduct public riding lessons
  • Birthday Parties- Due to the therapeutic nature of our mental health work, we do not conduct birthday parties/pony rides/parties.

At Crossroads Corral, it is very important for us to stay true to our cause and our mission. I hope that if you had any questions regarding our services that you now have a clear picture of exactly what we do and how we serve!

Horses Can Carry You To Healing Without Riding

By: Lindsay Brim

When people learn that we use horses to help people, their mind immediately goes to riding. I am here to explain why our therapy clients don’t ride in our sessions and the great benefits of working with the horses on the ground for both horses and humans.

First I want to talk about basic horsemanship. Any good horse person knows that when you purchase or adopt a new horse, the first thing that you should do is ground work, also if you’re into horses and horse riding, you should check this custom browbands which are perfect for this. By this, I mean spending time building the relationship with the horse on the ground. This is so important for building trust, learning how to communicate with each other and building a strong bond. This is similar to any human relationship. When humans meet each other, much “ground work” is done prior to advancing the relationship. You don’t ask someone to marry you on the first or second date, right? Well I hope not anyways! 

Working with the horses on the ground helps us to learn about ourselves and our behavior patterns as well as build a relationship with another “being”. The horses provide honest, un-bias feedback to our body language, non-verbal communication, and feelings/fears that we don’t even know is there sometimes, and of course if we have horses, learning about horse menange maintenance is essential as well.

Here are a few reasons why our therapy program is incredibly effective and only involves ground work:

  • This work of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) and Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) is tried and true across the county. We have specific curriculums and activities that we complete to obtain maximum therapeutic benefit and all activities involve working with the horse on the ground.
  • We are NOT a therapeutic riding facility. We chose to focus on mental health vs. serving individuals with physical disabilities. Therapeutic riding is extremely helpful and effective for those with physical disabilities such as Spina Bifida, Cerebral Palsy, etc. There are many great facilities that focus on therapeutic riding, which is one of the many reasons we decided to specialize in mental health.
  • When we are standing next to a 1200lb animal, it can be intimidating and push us outside of our comfort zone which helps us grow. On the flip side, clients feel connected with their horse when they walk side by side and they build confidence.
  • We want our horses to be authentic, honest and true for our mental health work vs doing something they have been “trained” to do. When our clients come to us and they are full of anxiety, the horses often present as anxious as well. This is easy to see and manage from the ground but could be a recipe for disaster in the saddle with an inexperienced rider. When the client sees the horse being anxious, it helps them to realize how they are presenting to the world. They can also learn how to manage their anxiety through the activities with the horse.
  • The age or history of the horse isn’t a factor! Many of our horses are older and they are able to have a wonderful purpose and serve others in our work. We also have horses who have been rescued and suffered their own trauma which can be instrumental in a clients therapy session and their healing.
  • Our horses are able to serve clients who have no interest in riding. We have had clients that said, “I can’t do your program, I was thrown from a horse when I was 12”. When we explain there is no riding involved, they are pleasantly surprised and happy to sign up. This also gives us a chance for our horses to erase any bad horse memories.

 

In conclusion, we are a facility devoted to serving individuals and groups with Equine Assisted Mental Health services and we are not a therapeutic riding facility. All of our therapy sessions take place on the ground with a Licensed Mental Health Professional and Certified Equine Specialist. There are so many incredible benefits of working with horses on the ground including helping us to become self-aware, heal and grow. This work is being done across the country and over the last four years, we have seen incredible results in our very own program with our horses who love to do this work!

 

 

 

 

 

WE HAVE MOVED!

By: Lindsay Brim

We are SO excited to be moved into our new home! The farm is just over 5 acres, with large fields, an 8 stall barn with attached paddocks, plus the minis have their own small barn and turn out! We have a brand new, lighted riding arena as well as a beautiful shaded round pen for therapy. This year we will be getting a new building that will hold a bathroom as well as an office! We love the water views, natural wild life and our horses are truly so happy here!

Address: 6879 S. Sylvan Lake Drive, Sanford Fl 32771 

We are minutes from the back gate of Heathrow and a few miles from I-4.

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Thank you to all of our incredible volunteers and supporters who helped make this move happen! 

Big News- A New Home For Crossroads!

By: Lindsay Brim

We are so exited to introduce our friends to our new home in the Heathrow/Sanford area!

New Address: 6879 S. Sylvan Lake Dr, Sanford 32771

We Are Moving

The property is over 5 acres and has water views, an 8 stall barn plus a home for our miniature horses. The property is extremely peaceful and beautiful! We have seen many deer and cranes roaming the property and enjoying the peace and quiet!

We can’t wait for everyone to see our new home!

 

2017 Year in Review

By: Lindsay Brim

“Horses teach you a lot. Very little of it actually has to do with horses” –unknown

2017 has been an exciting and busy year on the farm! We are so thankful to our passionate volunteers, supporters, board of directors, horses, clients and team who make this work possible! This year we had a large focus on growing our Equine Assisted Psychotherapy Program to serve more clients with exceptional mental health services right on our farm.

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Here are some highlights from 2017:  

Number of Sessions Comparison

  • We grew our therapeutic program by 107% this year, providing 174 sessions in 2017 vs. 84 sessions in 2016
  • We were presented with an award this year as the “Community Impact Organization” being recognized by another incredible non-profit organization as well as the Seminole County Sheriff for our work
  • We have provided over 2,000 volunteer hours
  • We began a new program for the Caregivers of Veterans which was incredibly impactful for all involved

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  • We continued our relationship with Community Based Care of Central Florida serving youth in foster care with our services, including providing a group workshop to 15 high school aged youth as part of the First Star Academy
  • Each of our fundraising events were more successful than the past events, thanks to incredible supporters like YOU!
  • We have been able to continue serving Veterans and their families with mental health services free of charge
  • We were able to retain grants from The Florida Blue Foundation, Lawrence E. White Family Foundation and we obtained a new grant for 2017 from Helpful Hands Inc.

With the good comes the bad and we can’t acknowledge this year without mentioning the loss of two incredible therapy horses, our Amaretto “Retta” and Windy Hills Angel Eyes “Angel”.  We miss these girls more than words can say!

We have some exciting plans for 2018 so please stay tuned! Make sure to like our Facebook page to keep up with our updates and events!

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See Ya NEXT YEAR! Wishing our friends a blessed 2018! 

 

 

 

 

A Letter to Our Donors and Supporters

By: Lindsay Brim

THank you for your support

As Thanksgiving approaches, it is a wonderful time to reflect on the year and what we are thankful for. As an organization, we are so thankful to be able to provide a life changing and meaningful service to others through horses, but we certainly cannot and do not do this alone.

When starting a Non-Profit Organization, otherwise known as a 501 ©3 the passion and drive is already there but, there are many important things to take into account. What is our mission? Who will we serve? What makes us different from other programs? Who will sit on our Board of Directors? (I’m sure you get the idea here.) A very important factor is how will we raise money and become sustainable? This is one of the biggest challenges and what we are incredibly thankful for on this Thanksgiving and every day, our donors and supporters.

Because of you, we are able to provide our Mental Health services to Veterans who suffer from PTSD and their families, youth and women who have suffered trauma, abuse and neglect at NO to very LOW cost. If you have donated to our organization, attended events, sponsored a horse, promoted us on social media, referred a client or became a community partner, WE THANK YOU! If you have given your time to our organization in any capacity, we are so thankful.

Where do donations go? Our team is more than happy to volunteer our time to serve, we raise money to provide the necessary care for our horses, otherwise known as our “equine therapists” so that they can have their needs met and be in optimal health to serve others. Just to give you an idea of what I mean:

 

Our Typical Monthly Expenses for Horse Care Include:Thank you toby and connie

-Horse Boarding (payment to our landlord for the horses to be on the property $1500/month)

-Feed (approx. $300/month)

-Hay (approx. $850/month)

-Farrier (horses need their feet trimmed/re-shoed every 6 weeks approx. $400/month)

*This does not include any Vet visits, farm equipment, repairs and other things that are required to run our operations

 When donating to our organization, you are providing a life changing experience to someone in need in our community. Mental Health is incredibly important, often overlooked and  and we provide a way of delivering this service in a unique and powerful way. We could not take on this battle alone and we are so thankful to those who have decided to support our mission and those we serve.

In this season of giving, we hope you continue to support Crossroads Corral and help us to fill in the gaps of mental health!