Tucked away along the Bow River, minutes from busy downtown, is a place where a fifteen-year-old has found her calm.
“That’s like the first area I got to feel a connection of home,” said Kalisa Gonzalez.
She joined the Prairie Sky Equine Assisted Therapy program last January. It’s been a weekly visit for Gonzalez and about 50 Calgary children and adults with disabilities and PTSD.
“I’ve just gone through some stuff and I know that the bond between a horse and a human can actually go a long ways.”
The charity was started by a local paramedic, Jessica Van Der Hoek, about 14 years ago.
“I didn’t know when I started this program that I had really severe PTSD,” said Van Der Hoek.
For the last three years it’s been run out of the Calgary Shrine Stables, using an arena built in the 80s with the help of a $1 million community grant.
But two months ago, they received a 60-day eviction notice. The Al Azhar Shriners of Southern Alberta said they were proceeding in a new direction. That’s left the program — and it’s eight horses — scrambling for a new home.
“We found a place to go for the next one to 12 months that will allow us to keep the horses there but because it’s already a fully operational business, we won’t be able to get our full programming,” said Van Der Hoek. “We’ll have to run a very pared down programming, which is only a couple of classes a week.”
It’s a loss that clients say will impact them deeply.
“People don’t realize that horses and a lot of other animals can feel what you feel,” said Gonzalez. “When you’re able to share that with an animal and both feel centered at the same time — it definitely does help.”
Many other clients won’t be able to make the hour-plus drive north of the city to the new temporary location.
“She is deeply saddened to no longer be able to be part of this amazing community until they return closer in proximity to the city limits,” said her mother, Christina Colyn, whose daughter has been part of the program since 2020.
The move is creating added challenges for the program which is currently waitlisted.
“Costs are always an issue especially with hay prices,” said Van Der Hoek. “Really, just being able to find place where we can find enough arena time to run our program is our biggest issue.”
The hope, according to Van Der Hoek, once resettled, is for the program to fundraise to buy its own land and build its own dedicated facility.
Their lease expires on Sunday.
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