HeartStrides Therapeutic Horsemanship

12/24/2025

12/24/2025

During our 9th annual Give Local, our communities came together in an extraordinary way—raising $1.6M in support of 154 nonprofits working across Lewis, Mason, and Thurston counties.

Beyond the dollars raised, Give Local helped nonprofits increase their visibility, share stories about their work, and connect with supporters through peer-to-peer fundraising and other opportunities. Give Local is a powerful reminder of what's possible when we all give back to what we most love in our community. 🧡

We're grateful to everyone who participated—nonprofits, individuals, families, local businesses, sponsors, and other community partners. Together, we made this year's event a success!

🔗 Check out the Give Local Community Report here: https://ow.ly/VW0K50XMKpV

12/19/2025

Recent flooding caused by a notably active atmospheric river has affected communities in Washington State, including South Puget Sound communities.

12/18/2025

Dawkins Charitable Fund has been instrumental to the sustainability of HeartStrides. The dollars they have given locally have helped so many non-profits thrive, including HS. We will forever be grateful for their gracious generosity. It has been a turning point for us and we are blessed to have crossed paths with Mark and Kathie.

12/18/2025

Look what our friends at GRUB are doing for the good of our community!

GRuB's Garden Project (GGP) offers gardens, seeds, vegetable starts, access to our gardening & health workshop series, and facilitates connections within the greater gardening community. A primary goal of the GGP is to support a network of low-income gardeners in order to increase accessibility to sufficient, safe, and nutritious foods. We also partner with community groups, schools, and households of various incomes, so that all people are able to benefit from good food. All are encouraged to apply and applications will be reviewed and selected in January!
Learn more and apply here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gCs4nbm3VIZ2jS5BUU8-4FS7G0ck9gTmu6bQYcOosvQ/edit?tab=t.0 =h.k3tjm1ks4cox

12/17/2025

HeartStrides Therapeutic Horsemanship would like to thank the Puyallup tribe of Indians for their generous acknowledgment of the work we do for our fellow humans. We received a charity funding Grant of $7,500 and a beautiful meal as well as meeting many, many other non-profit organizations contributing to our local communities. Thank you again for the honor of receiving vital funding to continue our work Puyallup tribe of Indians. ❤️

12/14/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/1ZtjNqa7pU/?mibextid=wwXIfr

"While anger in girls and women is overwhelmingly portrayed as irrational, it is, in fact, completely rational," observes author Soraya Chemaly. Girls’ anger often grows as they reach their teens, because studies show that girls and women are more likely to feel anger about injustice, powerlessness, and other people’s irresponsibility -– all things they confront head on as they approach adulthood. “They begin to see the effects of gender–based double standards that fly in the face of everything they’ve learned so far about their abilities, equality, and potential,” she reflects.

Rather than fighting her own anger, as Chemaly says she did for many years, she now realizes that "it can be controlled, transformed, used. It can be a tool. Anger can inspire art, and anger fuels activism. What if we knew girls could be angry? What if we showed them how to use it? What if we let them know that they weren’t alone?... In dark times, our inner fire glows brightest."

To read more about why it's important to let girls be angry – and how to teach girls to channel their anger productively at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=23651

Soraya Chemaly is the author of the powerful book for adults "Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger" at https://www.amightygirl.com/rage-becomes-her

For several excellent books for children and teens on understanding and expressing anger in healthy ways, we recommend "Anger Management Skills Workbook for Kids" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/anger-management-workbook-kids) and "How to Take the GRRR Out of Anger" for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/grrr-out-of-anger)

For teens, ages 13 and up, we recommend the guides "The Anger Workbook for Teens" (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-anger-workbook-for-teens) and "When Anxiety Makes You Angry" (https://www.amightygirl.com/anxiety-makes-you-angry)

There's also a fantastic card game on anger management for ages 6 to 12 at https://www.amightygirl.com/mad-dragon

For books for kids of all ages on better understanding and managing emotions of all varieties, visit our blog post, "Understanding The Way I Feel: 50 Mighty Girl Books About Managing Emotions,” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11449

12/08/2025

The Weyerhaeuser Giving Fund just helped us continue to serve our mission. Thanks to their support, we can continue to provide services to our Community of Students with:
Challenges and Disabilities
Life Skills
Social Engagement
Mental Health
and much more.
Thank you so much, Weyerhaeuser Company, for being a part of our support team!

12/06/2025

Pedicure day for Dusty starts with a barefoot trim then glue on shoes. Nike could not do as well as Sam our favorite trimmer. 😘

12/05/2025

Today we celebrate and express our gratitude to Valeo Vocation non-profit for their partnership. It is invaluable because they do a ton of the maintenance repair and upkeep to help Healing Hearts Ranch Oly and HeartStrides stay safe and p**p free, and the stalls are all ready for the horses to come in during the atmospheric storm on the way! Yayyyy Valeo!!!

PS: Dutchess is helping everyone get in the holiday spirit.

12/03/2025