At Miles of Smiles, the program serves people with disabilities using equine assisted learning and therapeutic horseback riding.

     We accept riders over the age of 4, and serve a wide range of disabilities and disorders, including but not limited to autism, mental health disorders, intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities. 

     Each lesson is based to the riders ability and a horsemanship skill is taught in each lesson. Although we don't provide "therapy" we can work together with schools, counselors or doctors to work on individual needs of the rider. Riding a horse can give a similar movement of walking so this is a great benefit for an individual that has trouble walking or unable to walk. 

     Depending on the class, we use roughly 12 volunteers for each class. We normally ride for 6 weeks in the spring and 6 weeks in the fall. We have 2, one hour lessons on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Each class has about 3-4 riders in it. In addition we have private lessons, summer camp and will be adding an additional 4 week riding session later this fall. 

     We are blessed to have 2 riders that have been riding with the program since we started in 1997 and several others who have been riding for 15-20 years. It's great to see the progress in the riders that have been riding over the years!