Please support Emily’s Magical Safe Place
My daughter Emily enjoys visiting Leaps each week, which is a magical place that is full of acceptance and love for kids and adults of all abilities! Emily’s confidence and strength has been bolstered by her amazing adaptive riding instructor and now family friend Megan Baker, the amazing staff and army of volunteers! Once Emily gets on that horse she is immediately relaxed and in a fun mood singing songs and dancing on the horse!
Donate Here: https://fundraiser.leapspediatric.org/team/408243
Emily does not have many safe places, but at Leaps she can cut loose and be herself! It really tough being a teenager with Autism and Development Coordination Disorder, so having Leaps is just so important to her. We are soo lucky we were referred by a co-worker to this magical safe place! The staff really cares about each person and that includes the riders family and friends!
My younger neurotypical daughter Maddy attends as many horse camps as she can because she absolutely loves all the fun activities and ranch animals! Her favorite is riding the horses of course and has her favorites each camp! She always bring along a few friends to enjoy with her!
Maddy was extremely afraid of horses when we first went for one of Emily’s lessons. One of the Adaptive Riding instructors took her had and led her off to meet the horses. Then slowly had her pet, brush, feed and then sit on a horse. Next thing we knew she came around the corner riding a horse and yelling look at me mommy and daddy, I am riding a horse! After that she was fearless with the horses and really cares for each horse!
My amazing niece Alyssa is volunteer at Leaps and is currently attending University of La Verne with her career goal to be a Physical Therapist like my beautiful wife Mary! Alyssa knows horses very well and even was on a show team when younger! She wants to do PT with kids and learn hippotherapy, so might one day work at Leaps! She even volunteered for one of the horse camps and got to side walk with her cousin Maddy!
I love the magical place so much that I worked hard to get a grant from my company Capital Group with the help of the Executive Director Colleen Bragalone! From there I decide to really get involved to help out and I graciously accepted a Board of Directors position for the Non Profit, Friends of Leaps & Bounds Pediatric Therapy. I am now taking nonprofit leadership board training, that Capital group sponsors, to become the best informed board member I can. I am heading the Adaptive Riding Committee to establish 1-10 year goals to grow the program and expand!
