Volunteering at the Barn
We have opportunities for students to get more hands-on experience with the horses and equestrian business. We feel these opportunities are an important part of the development of confident and capable equestrians.
These opportunities are available for students that have at minimum completed our 10-week Introductory Program, or, similar number of hours of instruction in camps or other programs. This is because we need students to have a certain understanding for safety. When students first start volunteering, staff do spend quite of bit time with students, making sure that they comfortable with their tasks and capable of doing them safely. These tasks might include catching horses, grooming and tacking the horses up, leading horses in birthdays, picking poop, sweeping, cleaning tack and feeding horses grain and medicines.
We do offer students a free practice ride for every 16 hours of volunteer hours accumulated. Students are on the honor system for keeping track of their hours. Students can contact the office to book a practice ride once they have enough hours.
Read about the benefits of volunteering in our latest Blog Post!
These opportunities are available for students that have at minimum completed our 10-week Introductory Program, or, similar number of hours of instruction in camps or other programs. This is because we need students to have a certain understanding for safety. When students first start volunteering, staff do spend quite of bit time with students, making sure that they comfortable with their tasks and capable of doing them safely. These tasks might include catching horses, grooming and tacking the horses up, leading horses in birthdays, picking poop, sweeping, cleaning tack and feeding horses grain and medicines.
We do offer students a free practice ride for every 16 hours of volunteer hours accumulated. Students are on the honor system for keeping track of their hours. Students can contact the office to book a practice ride once they have enough hours.
Read about the benefits of volunteering in our latest Blog Post!
Junior Coach Program
Students that we feel have developed enough skills through the volunteering program may be asked if they want to participate in the Junior Coach Program. The Junior Coach Program has students work a 4-hour shift once a week. This shift is typically during peak-lesson times - 5pm to 9pm or 4:30 to 8:30pm weekdays, or weekends 8:30am to 12:30pm or 12:30 to 4:30pm.
Duties during these shifts include:
These shifts are training the students as to what having a job in the equine industry might be like, while providing a valuable service for the barn community. Although coaches are around the barn, these students work their tasks independently. We generally require that students are 12 years old and have completed at minimum 30+ hours of volunteer time. In return, these students will get a group lesson for every 8-hrs worked. These extra rides can be beneficial for students wanting extra lessons, and especially helpful financially for parents if they are looking to show eventually as we require students to ride at minimum 2 x per week to join the show team.
Duties during these shifts include:
- helping barn staff take horses out or bring horses in
- muck stalls, feed hay and water
- catching horses for intro programs or parent and me programs or birthdays
- helping students in intro programs, parent and me, post-intro or novice level classes catch their horses, groom, and tack-up
- help the coach set-up arena obstacles and take them down
- talk to students that have questions about horses, tack or the schedule
These shifts are training the students as to what having a job in the equine industry might be like, while providing a valuable service for the barn community. Although coaches are around the barn, these students work their tasks independently. We generally require that students are 12 years old and have completed at minimum 30+ hours of volunteer time. In return, these students will get a group lesson for every 8-hrs worked. These extra rides can be beneficial for students wanting extra lessons, and especially helpful financially for parents if they are looking to show eventually as we require students to ride at minimum 2 x per week to join the show team.
Volunteer Expectations and Rules
All volunteers and their parents are expected to read and sign our Junior Coach and Volunteer Professionalism and Expectations guidelines, in order to ensure clear understanding of what is expected by volunteers and the barn for volunteer opportunities. The fillable PDF can be emailed to us at lessons@sagehillstables.com
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