09/22/2022
Regardless of the riding program’s closure, Mary Latour still shows up daily in the barn to care for the ponies and horses until they leave the property. Yesterday she met the vet. Today she is feeding lunch, doing stalls, and moving horses around as they are stuck in due to rain.
Mary was there from the beginning and has never stopped. Her volunteer hours covered countless pages every year. Our volunteers were only eligible once for “volunteer of the year” but she deserved it every year, in addition to whoever was acknowledged. She and her husband Joe could be found shoveling snow after each and every storm outside of the Camp Care barn, helping to replace downed paneling and posts, or leaf blowing pastures. Anytime the weather suddenly turned inclement she was there to batten the hatches.
Mary stepped in as a feeder many years ago and never accepted a penny for anything that she did, even on holidays. She did stalls many times a week, and trained our groups that came from Horizons and STAAR program to assist us with stall care. Mary picked up medications from the vet and barn necessities from local stores when she was not at the barn. She ran fundraisers with us, was at every meeting that she could be that involved in any decision regarding the program, and gifted us countless donations over the years.
Mary gave her heart and soul to the riding program, and I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge her selfless dedication. She loved the participants, their families, the horses, and just being a part of anything related to the good work that we did. Camp Care’s riding program would not have been the same without Mary Latour.
Photos below show Mary with rider Gillian on Spirit in July of 2009, and then with Gillian on Natasha in September of 2022. 
