Horse therapy program back in the saddle after securing funding from province
Erin Gallant, program director of Stable Life, says her organization has received enough money from the province to stay open for at least another six months. (Elizabeth Whitten/CBC)
Stable Life, the non-profit horse therapy program in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, is back in the business of pairing people with horses to improve mental health.
As previously reported, the program needed at least $90,000 to continue operations, which forced it to close its doors in early October. However, program director Erin Gallant said they received funding from the provincial government this week that will keep it open for at least six to nine more months.
"It was very stressful to pause," Gallant said. "I kind of compared it to 'stop the bleeding' so that you can figure out a plan and recover. And that gave us time to put all of our focus on what we were going to do."
Gallant said the program fell on hard times because many non-profit organizations are competing for the same pot of government funds, which had run out.
"There's small pots of money that, you know, get given out that we had sort of made stretch as far as we possibly could stretch," Gallant said. "And we had been applying all summer and spring ... and we just weren't the recipient of any of them."
Funding applications re-opened on Nov. 1, and Gallant said there were already clients lined up for appointments.
Gallant said everyone is happy to see the horses out of the stables and in the arena, especially people who were disappointed that they hadn't seen them in over a month.
"They've been kind of just living their best life, eating every day, and still getting groomed and all that stuff," she said. "It was really good to see that the horses were back to work and that they were having a purpose and doing what they do best, which is helping people heal."
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