When the Shining Stars Therapeutic Riding Program moves its operations to a spacious 60-acre horse farm with a new state-of-the-art arena and stables, there’ll be more room for volunteers and special-needs riders to engage with their four-legged friends.

While the larger space has great potential, the property needs work. The Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, nonprofit has raised about half of the $7.7 million needed to develop it, and a recent volunteer day coordinated by NRECA’s Insurance & Financial Services Department and Adams Electric Cooperative helped move the project forward.

“It was fantastic. It was such an amazing event,” said Heather McComas, Shining Star’s equine connection director and volunteer coordinator. “It just blew our minds how many people came together for a huge cause…we could have never done that on our own.” 
 


Shining Stars has been providing therapeutic horsemanship programs in the Gettysburg area since 2003 and serves children and adults with special needs as well as veterans and senior citizens. Participation could mean getting in the saddle, riding in a cart pulled by their team of miniature horses or, for a child, building confidence by reading to a horse.

Shining Stars will move to its new location incrementally, and the July 23 volunteer project focused on fixing up an existing building to serve as a functioning stable for Shining Stars’ horses as work continues on the new, custom building.

The Adams EC and NRECA crew repaired floors, ripped out old wood, lugged debris and made a range of other functional and aesthetic upgrades.

“We got there, took a group picture and right after, put our gloves on and got to work,” said Peter Pham, I&FS senior adviser for new business and market research and a member of the committee that coordinated the project with the co-op.

The Adams EC team included several lineworkers, who brought a bucket truck that let them power wash the building’s gutters and fix roof trim. The co-op’s skilled electricians also took on replacing a fan and installing about 60 LED bulbs.

Already a supporter of the nonprofit, Adams EC wanted to do something special for the day of service.

“Kudos to Shining Stars for the unique niche they are serving locally,” said Adams EC CEO/General Manager Steve Rasmussen. “I’m glad we could be a small part of helping bring these services to those who need them, not only through our participation in this day of service but through the donations that we make to community groups every year.”

The bulk of the project was restoring the flooring of roughly 20 stalls and the hallways in front of them to make them safe and comfortable for horses.

“We came in with our own rakes and shovels and scooped out all of that old debris, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, rolling it out of the stalls,” said Kami Noel, the co-op’s communications/member relations coordinator.

The next step, said David Muhlbaum, an NRECA benefits communications manager, was to level the floor with stone dust and then put down rubber floor mats.

“Each stall needed about six mats, and each of those was about 100 pounds and floppy,” he said. “Impromptu teams of two, working together, dragging mats—that was a big part of the job.”

The Shining Stars project was months in the making. Muhlbaum, Pham, Noel and McComas began working on logistics in January, including designing a work plan, matching tasks with volunteer skill sets and conducting a pre-site visit. And the partnership continues beyond the day of service, with both NRECA and Adams EC making financial donations to the project.

“Whenever there’s an opportunity to come together with our co-op members to support a need in their community, we’re excited to pitch in,” said Peter Baxter, NRECA senior vice president of I&FS. “It’s great to see the co-op family demonstrating the dual cooperative principles of cooperation among cooperatives and concern for community.”