and building respect for herself and others. White has
gone from skipping school to graduating from Colorado
State University with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural
Education and is currently teaching for the Morgan County
school district in Colorado. She loves working with children
to give them the same opportunities she enjoyed.
In order for kids to receive scholarships to participate in
HTH programs or a partnering facility’s programs, they are
qualified partially based on family income. Each candidate
is evaluated on a case-by-case basis depending on the
needs and wants of the child and family. There are some
kids that need help paying for camp or lessons, but there
are also those youngsters who just want to go to a barn
and groom horses or feed them, anything to make a
connection with these special animals. During the
application process, kids can choose a specific program,
or Happiness Through Horses can help find the right
program and facility to meet their needs.
Though raising money for underserved kids to attend
summer horse camps was the catalyst for the forming of
her nonprofit organization, Swaney wanted to create a
foundation that also offered youths an opportunity to go to
any approved horse ranch for anything horse related that
could help them succeed, not limited to just camps. She
wanted to ensure that kids wanting to work with horses in
any capacity have the financial resources and support to
do so.
Happiness Through Horses is a program where kids can
come to say, “I want to be around horses, but I don’t know
where to go, can you help me?” Or, “I know where I want to
go, I just can’t afford it, can you help me?” If a child has a
strong desire to be around horses but doesn’t know where
to start or how to pay for it, Swaney will find a way to make
that happen. HTH started out helping with one summer
camp and they now partner with nine other facilities,
trainers and therapists. They also launched a program of
their own called the Happiness Club which operates from
three different locations in Fort Lupton, Colorado: B Bold
Ranch, Rockin’ Moon Ranch, and Diamond in the Rough
Training and Horsemanship with trainer, Tina Wright.
Now that HTH is established they are ready to grow.
They have an enthusiastic volunteer base of fifty people
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