Shining Hope Farms

WHERE WOULD I BE VOLUNTEERING? We have two locations, one in the North Lake region of Charlotte (3701 Kidd Lane, Charlotte, NC) and one in Mount Holly (328 Whippoorwill Lane, Mount Holly, NC). Each farm has its own schedule, but the same tasks and structure. WHAT WILL I BE DOING? Here at Shining Hope Farms volunteers usually do one or a combination of two things: 1) Barn work This can include a variety of activities like grooming the horses, filling water buckets, mucking out stalls, tacking horses, sweeping, etc. 2) Participation in the arena for a therapy session or riding lesson (minimum age of 13) This includes acting as a side-walker (someone who helps to hold a child steady on the horse while walking around the arena for a session) or as a horse-leader (someone who leads the horse around the arena and is responsible for the horse during a session) We can also usually use volunteers for lots of other purposes. If you have special skills we're sure we could use them! We understand that our volunteers may have tons of experiences with horses, some experience with horses, or even none at all! We want our volunteers to be happy and comfortable so we are always willing to work with your schedule, interests, and skills and abilities. WHEN CAN I VOLUNTEER? It does so happen that we can only have volunteers when we have therapy sessions or riding lessons going on which is roughly M-F/Sa 8 AM - 6 PM. HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE TO COMMIT? Did you know we provide our services free of charge to the majority of our participants? We can only do this because of amazing people like you! Unlike many organizations, we rely on our volunteers much like staff members. If it weren’t for our amazing volunteers, many of our therapy sessions would be too short staffed to go on. Additionally if we can’t rely on having consistent volunteers, there is no way for us to know how many children we will be able to serve each week. Because of this, we prefer each of our volunteers to commit to at least a couple of consistent hours a week for at least eight weeks. HOW SOON CAN I START? We require all volunteers to go through a volunteer training before they can begin volunteering. Trainings are offered about once a month. After you reach out to us, we can get you scheduled for a training. We want to make this a great and enjoyable experience for you! Volunteering is fun and volunteering around horses is even better! ** All volunteers must have health insurance!