After a much needed warm and dry sleep at the church we started our drive out to Awendaw, SC to work with Rein and Shine, a therapeutic riding facility. 20 minutes and two wrong turns later (thanks, Liz...) we pulled up to an extremely soggy Rein and Shine farm. We were unfortunately told that they were not having any lessons today because their arena was flooded! Too much rain apparently puts Charleston on the Struggle Bus. However, we (mostly city and suburban people...) helped around the barn with various chores. After a quick tour and introduction to the horses, half of us went off to repair a fence that some rowdy horses had knocked down the night before and half of us worked to clean out the stalls. Theresa mastered the drill today and we all gained the knowledge of cleaning stalls...it was definitely a success.
Then, we sat down with the therapeutic riding instructor and she explained how the riding helps those with disabilities. She explained that the horseback riding is the only motion that is similar to the motion of walking in humans, making it a feeling those with physical disabilities rarely feel. The riding also is a soothing activity for those with both physical and intellectual disabilities. After explaining the benefits that are gained through riding, she showed us the equipment and explained how people are put up and held up (if needed..) on the horse. She was very thorough with her explanations and was a great resource for our group! Two of us will be going out tomorrow to Rein and Shine with the Charleston Autism Academy, the group we worked with on Monday and we’re excited to see it in action!
Due to the fact that there were no children today, we left Rein and Shine right before lunch. Thankfully our wonderful site leaders had a plan though (they have become really good at winging it!). After eating PB & J on the road in the big white van (AKA “General Lee”) we headed to West Ashley High School to work in their special education classrooms. Caleb’s GPS first took us to the Middle School (keep in mind it was not close at all) and we finally made it the high school around 1 PM.
West Ashley High School has six special education classrooms with about 120 students in total with 28 teachers and 21 aides. The classrooms were split up by diagnosis and functional abilities. Dividing the classrooms like this helps with focusing on the needs of each child to the best of their abilities. We paired off and went into these classrooms to help out and observe what they were doing. These classes did activities such as cookie baking, pizza making, vocational activities, worksheets, flashcards, filling out information for library cards, and many more. The teachers were thankful to have us there to help and were open to answer any questions that we may have had. The students were very friendly and couldn’t seem to wipe the smiles off their faces or get rid of the giggles! At the end of the school day most of us ended up in one room where we were able to hang out and have fun with these students!
The ride back in General Lee consisted of some awesome theme song singing, I’ll Make a Man Out of You, and various other disney music. We went back to our church, made plans for dinner and sealed our love with friendship bracelets.
We just arrived at a Starbucks after eating dinner at Santi’s Restaurante Mexicano, where we ate a variety of delicious mexican dishes (a few of us were brave enough to try tripe... and decided that it’s not our favorite) and we’re trying to figure out what our plans are for the rest of the night.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
Peace and love,
Charle-STUNNERS.
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