Want to join the Henry’s Home Family of civilian and veteran/first responder volunteers?

New Volunteer Orientations:  The first Wednesday at 9 a.m and first Saturday at 10 a.m. of each month.  If you are a civilian you must be over the age of 18. We do allow our veteran and first responders to bring their older kiddos with them to volunteer. Everyone here is a volunteer. Veterans and first responders simply have the opportunity to do more with the horses, including ground training and riding lessons, at no cost. Horses are simply the best therapists and teachers. No horse experience is needed. We do ask if you are a civilian to commit to volunteering at least once a week minimum.  No maximum. 😉

After attending the orientation you can schedule mornings to learn some of our daily horse care/ranch chores while working with other volunteer mentors. For example, you will learn to put out hay, sweep and hose the feed stalls, clean and fill feed buckets and water troughs, pick up or spread manure, tack and barn care, and so much more. There are always lots of organizing, cleaning, pasture and pond maintenance and building projects going on as well, if you like to work with your hands. We cut and move brush, mow, repair fences, build all kinds of things, water and weed the gardens, etc.  If you have IT skills, marketing or fundraising experience, mechanical experience, or other things to offer us to help care for these 31 rescued and surrendered horses as well as this ranch, we are so grateful. If you are a veteran or first responder we could use your help as well, but you are not required to keep serving here. You can get right into learning everything horse if you want.

For civilians, after you have gotten started working at these horse care/ranch/business chores, if you want to start handling and grooming the horses, you will have the opportunity to take some lessons from our more experienced volunteers [mentors]. We all need to be on the same page for these horses who have been through so much and appreciate consistency. Once we are confident in your safe ability to catch, halter, lead and groom the horses, we encourage you to become a Barn Buddy. This means you commit to giving one particular horse some extra attention every week with grooming, bathing in the summer, etc. Of course, all the horses appreciate a good grooming, so you will never be limited to just your buddy. You may also want to join our morning and/or evening feed teams. We feed all the horses their supplement every morning, all together, and just a few [our harder keepers] in the evening. And you can help us take care of daily first aid care, farrier care, and basically learn horses soup to nuts.

Kids are allowed to come with their parents to work on a land or building project with a group [boy and girl scouts, churches, FFA, NCR, NCL, etc.], but not with our individual regular volunteers. Your kiddos may come join you here for the special events we have fairly regularly if you regularly volunteer, but you are 100% responsible for their safety and supervision. 

We offer a lot of flexibility as to what days and times, how often, etc, you can come volunteer. You may choose to come a specific day or more every week, or you may only be able to tell us the night before that you are coming due to other changing obligations.  That’s just fine. The more you do, the more you learn. And when you are ready, you will have opportuntities to help mentor new volunteers if you would enjoy that, as well as assist our Equine Professional in the more complicated horse care. Also, you might want to get involved in more of the organization and leadership, as well as helping us with the different groups that come for teambuilding or group volunteer days. We really appreciate hard work, showing initiative, honestly using your voice about any limitations you have, asking for help, recognizing that most of the time ‘good enough is good enough’, and feeling gratitude for this opportunity.  What we don’t appreciate here at Henry’s Home is drama, back-biting, taking more than you give, comparison and judgement of others . . . we are not that place, and you will be asked to leave if that becomes a problem. We are a sanctuary of peace and simplicity, a place to heal your soul, by way of this family and these animals.

Other than the basics to care for the horses, on Mondays we close so everyone can have a rest.

If you are interested in getting on the schedule to join one of our new volunteer orientations, please contact our Executive Director, Donna Stedman, at 281-292-1110 [text is best], or email her at donna@henryshomehorsesanctuary.org.