By Susan Armitage

Preferring to be described as “re-treaded” instead of retired, Helen Dorner has used her years since retiring as a nursing supervisor to help develop the BraveHearts Therapeutic Riding and Educational Center in Harvard, Ill. into one of the premier therapeutic riding and driving centers in the United States. Helen, a resident of Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., was recently honored as Volunteer of the Year for Region Seven of the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA). Region Seven covers a five-state area that includes Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Helen received her award in a special presentation at the annual NARHA Conference that was held in Hartford, Conn. from October 30 to November 1, 2008.

Helen Dorner driving Taliesin (Tali), her beloved horse who is the cornerstone of the BraveHearts therapeutic carriage driving program.

Helen officially volunteers as the Director of People Relations for BraveHearts where she handles all the initial contacts with students and volunteers joining the program. This includes making sure all the paperwork is sent and received back, reviewing everything for completeness, scheduling the initial “meet and greet” sessions, working with the instructors on the lesson schedules, scheduling volunteers and arranging parent/instructor sessions. But at 76 years young and despite two total hip replacements, Helen is an integral part of the program’s operations and is often found grooming and tacking horses, cleaning tack or picking stalls. She knows all the staff, volunteers and, of course, the horses. Driving from her home to Harvard two or three times every week is a two-hour round trip each time and she put more than 10,000 miles on her vehicle this year, but she can count the number of times she has missed a visit in the past six years on one hand.

“This is very, very important to me,” Helen said. “I see the difference BraveHearts makes to handicapped adults as well as children. I want to do whatever I can to help, whether that is arranging someone’s first visit, grooming and tacking a horse or removing a pile of manure from the arena. Horses are my life and I love seeing the joy they bring –it is contagious.”

Growing up in Astoria, New York, Helen had little opportunity to be bitten by the horse bug until she had graduated from nursing school. A friend who managed a resort in Colorado invited her for a visit and she spent several weeks trail riding and camping in the mountains. While she thoroughly enjoyed riding and being around horses, for many years her interaction with them was limited until she became friendly with a co-worker, Karen Carlisle, at the retirement home where Helen was the assistant director of nursing. She started visiting Karen and her horse, Kacy, at Gateway Riding Center in Oswego every week.

“I loved visiting Kacy, who is a beautiful white Arabian,” Helen said. “Karen would show me how to work with him and it was so much fun. He was so smart and responsive.” Helen was also active in the Friesian Club and with the Black Horse Troop. She is a regular at the Midwest Horse Fair and has made many friends in the horse world from natural horseman Curt Pate to Portuguese classical riding master Vitor Silva.

Helen also was a volunteer at the Hanson Center in Burr Ridge, Ill., which is a therapeutic riding center. As a registered nurse she could quickly see the improvement in the students’ muscle tone and posture, but what she really loved was seeing the happiness and feeling of accomplishment the students had after a ride.

Because of a hip replacement, Helen wasn’t able to ride herself. But when Karen bought her a carriage driving lesson at Mary Kenney’s Fantasy Friesian Farm in Harvard as a birthday gift nearly 10 years ago, Helen was hooked.

She soon leased a white Welsh cob named Shanie and learned to drive. She later bought one of Shanie’s foals, Taliesin (Tali). Using natural horsemanship Helen worked Tali herself until Tali was ready to learn riding and driving. Tali was one of the first horses in BraveHearts program, which began in 2003, and is now one of the most popular!

Helen and her friend Marge Tautkus Gunnar, are two of the founding members of the BraveHearts Board of Directors. Marge, a friend who had volunteered with Helen at the Hanson Center, is a cancer survivor. An avid horsewoman, Marge credited Max, her Lippizzan stallion, with helping her beat cancer. She wanted others to know the healing power of the horse and was the inspiration behind BraveHearts.

Accredited by the NARHA, BraveHearts is one of the few therapeutic riding programs in the country to offer both therapeutic riding and driving and is the only program in Illinois to offer carriage driving. Serving individuals with cognitive, emotional and physical disabilities, BraveHearts offers a therapeutic activity beyond the traditional clinic setting. The program welcomes students ages four and up with a wide range of disabilities including cerebral palsy, autism, multiple sclerosis and Downs syndrome. In 2007 BraveHearts expanded its services to include therapeutic driving and now serves wounded and disabled veterans, including those from Hines Veterans Hospital and the Milwaukee Veterans Hospital, in the Horses for Heroes program. None of the services BraveHearts offers would be possible without the help of the many volunteers like Helen who are an essential part of the BraveHearts program. Duties include grooming, leading horses, side walking with students, recreation programs, day camp counselors and a variety of non-horse related jobs as well. Training for new volunteers and continuing education is held every six weeks. For more information call 630-834-1827 or visit the BraveHearts website at www.braveheartsriding.org.