Volunteer!

We are always looking for more volunteers.

There are several ways that you can volunteer with us.

If you have horse experience you can be a horse-handler in our lessons! Horse-handlers lead the horse during lessons following the instructors direction, side-walkers can train to be horse handlers after 3 months of active volunteering.
If you don't have experience with horses you can train to be a side-walker in our lessons! Side-walkers walk along the side of the horse helping to steady participants during lessons.
We also need feed shift volunteers! Feeders commit to one morning or evening a week, and come out spend time with the horses and make sure everyone gets there dinner or breakfast outside of lessons.
Join us for various fundraisers throughout the year.

Rein and Shine’s network of volunteers and instructors prepare a formal lesson plan for each participant. The lesson plan includes Overall Goals, Semester Goals, Objectives, and an Evaluation for each lesson. Data compiled from these lesson plans provide specifics on the nature of disabilities experienced by our nearly fifty students, as well as their progress toward meeting individualized goals. The data are utilized by the staff to initiate performance improvement options if goals are not being met. Parental and school input is also requested and utilized within the organization. For example, a student with Autism may have a sensory goal. This student would start off by standing near the horse. Once this is accomplished the next goal might be touching the horse, then grooming the horse, with the overall goal being the student developing the ability to mount the horse.

Apart from our students who receive private lessons, Rein and Shine also serves groups from special education classes at Wando High School and Moultrie Middle School (local public schools). Other local organizations such as the local chapter of the National MS Society, Pattison’s Academy, and others benefit from therapeutic riding in our program.

All of these lessons are held at our scenic facility on over 38 acres in Awendaw, SC. Our facility includes a 13 stall barn with a tack room were we store riding equipment and helmets. Horses and students enjoy several paddocks and pastures as well as extensive riding trails that go through Francis Marion National Forrest. Lessons are held in our large arena, with a mounting block and a mounting ramp. Rein and Shine also has picnic and tables and waiting areas for parents and teachers.

"Everyone can see how much this program does for the children, however few realize how it changes the volunteers. The joy I feel in my heart watching these kids work so intensely to accomplish what they do isn’t visible to anyone, yet I know it’s there. Knowing how these kids struggle every minute of every day to do the simplest things and watching their determination really brings a non-handicapped person down to earth quickly. The pure happiness on the face of a child feeling proud of him/herself for accomplishing one small task is sometimes overwhelming to me. I learn a lot from being part of these classes with the kids. Their excitement is contagious and it’s difficult not to become involved and share it with them. We share their joy in the things they are able to do. It’s almost as if life as I know it stops and I become part of a divine plan for those hours while working with the kids. It makes my heart smile and there’s no place else I’d rather be. The great joy and blessing of working with these kids is priceless. Becoming a volunteer horse handler for the Rein and Shine program has changed my life so dramatically for the better. "

Pam H. (Rein and Shine volunteer)

Leslie