St. Helena Lions Club Brings Together Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind and Sunrise Horse Rescue for Memorable Experience
Camp Director Tony Fletcher from the Enchanted Hills Camp brought a group of 18 visually impaired and blind youngsters to St. Helena’s Sunrise Horse Rescue on July 21. David Stoneberg/The Weekly Calistogan
It was the inspiration of Calistogan Joe Schneider that brought 18 blind and visually impaired campers, from 8 to 13 years old, to St. Helena’s Sunrise Horse Rescue recently.
Schneider, whose passions include caring for rescued and abused horses, set up the field trip with Tony Fletcher, camp director of Napa’s Enchanted Hills Camp, and Tracee Oles, president of Sunrise Horse Rescue. “What a great opportunity it was for the youngsters to feel the muzzle, to experience the smell, the power and gentle experience of a horse,” Schneider said.
Sacramento’s Andi Thom, who has been attending the summer camp for some 14 years, is a counselor in training this year. She said she was thrilled to be on the field trip because she loves animals. For Thom, the best part of the trip was when she was taking pictures of the campers’ faces when they were petting the horse. “I loved it because they looked all cute and really happy,” she said. “They’d ask, what’s this part of the horse, what’s that part. It was really cool.”
Laura Von Merveldt is a counselor from Oakland. She called the field trip “fantastic” and “really, really great.” Why? “It’s a beautiful environment and the sighted and unsighted kids were able to experience the horses equally,” she said. “Even for those without sight, they could feel everything we experienced here, which was wonderful. They touched the horses, touched the food, fed the horses and were able to hear the stories. They experienced the same types of emotion and empathy that I think these stories would inspire in anybody. It was moving.”
Lindsay Merget, vice president of Sunrise Horse Rescue, said the group learned about what they do as a horse rescue organization and what it means to be a responsible horse owner and caregiver. After the visit, she added, “I felt like some of them may have identified with our horses who have overcome difficult times in their lives.”
Many of the 18 campers had been to Enchanted Hills Camp before, in previous summers, and they came from all over the Bay Area. “Today we were invited by the Sunrise Horse Rescue to learn about their program,” Fletcher said. “We have horse programs up at our camp and we thought it would be a deeper, enriching experience for our kids to find out about other facilities, especially for this organization that is doing a worthy cause of saving horses and take care of them. A lot of today’s experience was about horse care, horse management and facility management.”
It seems only natural that Schneider arranged the trip: He knew Sunrise Horse Rescue, because his daughter, Josie, rode there years ago when she was 8. The St. Helena Vintage Lions Club is a “Club of Sight,” and Schneider is its president. Years ago he went to Enchanted Hills Camp and conducted a tree identification class by touch for many of the campers. In his day job, Schneider is owner of Calistoga’s Pacific Tree Care.
The St. Helena Vintage Lions Club, which was founded in 1963. Schneider said a lot of the original members left during the early 2000s, either because they moved or passed on. “A couple of friends of mine from Calistoga, including Ron Vuylsteke and Tom Carpenter, saw the need to keep the organization going, so they rallied on and made sure the club didn’t close,” Schneider said.
Traditionally, the club has collected used eyeglasses for distribution to those who need them. If a teacher recommends that a child needs glasses for reading, for example, the club will arrange for it. Schneider said the club arranges for an exam by optometrist Jean Neely and the child is able to pick out their own frames, and by doing so, gets a sense of dignity. Lately, the club has embarked on a project to get hearing aids for those who have difficulty hearing.
