BraveHearts Therapeutic Riding & Educational Center

Loretta Marchewka ❤️ Loretta “Lori” passed away peacefully on Sunday, May 26, 2024. Please join us for a celebration memorial of Lori’s life. Lori was passionate for helping others and volunteered with us at BraveHearts Therapeutic Riding and Educational Center for 8 wonderful years. We will gather to honor Lori at BraveHearts’ Harvard conference center on Saturday, June 8, 2024. Service to begin promptly at 1 PM. After, please join us to offer condolences to the family. The family requests you bring a sweet treat and sweet memory of Lori to share with everyone. BraveHearts 7319 Maxon Road Harvard, Illinois 60033 For questions, please contact our offices - 815-765-2113 —————— We wanted to share this old video from 2022 at our Annual Horse Show of Lori we found as we reminisced about her involvement at BraveHearts not only as a volunteer, but as a horseman too. She loved the horses deeply and it’s so special how you could see her appreciation here overflowing for how they impacted her life so positively. ❤️

Say hello to Crush! 🐢

There are many meanings that have been shared thru the ages for when you have a turtle sighting. One states, all good things come if you are patient and stay the course. If we rush too fast to see an outcome, we may miss valuable lessons along the way. 🐢 Another belief states that turtles bring tranquility and steadfastness. One turtle has taken up residence in our pond pasture - we welcome all the positivity he provides to our farm during his stay 💚

We hope you enjoy 33 seconds of Hank as we celebrate his 33rd birthday today! Happy Birthday Hank! 🎂🥳❤️

Thank you to Top Hand Ropes for your donation of these great ropes to our program ❤️ Your ropes got quite the use this past week as we hosted over 70 participants at our ranching clinic with MJ 🇺🇸 thank you for the opportunity to assist our Veterans in elevating their horsemanship in a new way 🤠

Cool gear, tickets, trips, and more await your bids! Click this link to view our Giving Tuesday auction: https://app.galabid.com/givingtuesdayauction/items

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving 🧡

Care about our herd? Show your luv today!♥️ Click this link to sponsor a new regular or heated water bucket for a member of our herd! https://braveheartsriding.app.neoncrm.com/forms/fall-bucket-raiser-2023

Our 22nd and last #TrailtoZero of 2023 has been completed. We are extremely proud of the Veterans who rode with us today and their vulnerability as they shared their stories and stoically rode 20-miles, continuing our mission to bring awareness to suicide prevention through horses for military Veterans. New York is the city where Trail to Zero first began, 7 years ago and continues to be the city where we have the largest public reach. This ride would not be possible without the extraordinary officers from Nypd Mounted Unit, NYPD, Newark Police Mounted Section, US Park Police Horse Mounted Training Center, Nassau’s Mounted Unit, New York State Police, the amazing volunteers, and the incredible horses who so willingly carried our riders 20 miles. #trailtozero

Today our prayers for safety & strength are with Jessie Dowling as she heads out for Day One of the Mongol Derby! As Jessie’s chosen charity to race for, we are honored for her to bring our mission to the attention of so many others. Be sure to follow along with the Mongol Derby live race tracking to see where Jessie is! https://equestrianists.com/live/

Trail to Zero Utah Beach - 9 kilometers down. follow us along the way https://bluelane.io/tjq8aw

Bonjour! Today we will start our first international Trail to Zero Ride in Deauville, France. #ttz Track us on our 20km route starting now at: https://app.tracki.com/new_client/#/public-map?token=pu07s4kq5pjdboidmofkh63vh2 #trailtozero #globalveteransuicideawareness #veteransuicideawareness

Yesterday, at the Horses and Humans Research Foundation symposium.

Enjoy a snapshot from BraveHearts Annual Horse Show held Saturday! Congratulations to all those who came out to compete and gave it their all in the arena. Thank you to our generous shows sponsors, incredible horses, dedicated volunteers, and team for a great event. 🤩

Earlier this week, Jessie Dowling, one of the only 45 riders in the 2023 Mongol Derby joined us at BraveHearts. It was wonderful getting to know her and have BraveHearts be a part of her prep journey for this summer’s race. Jessie has selected BraveHearts as her charity of choice. With your donation of $100, you may submit a name of a veteran that will be incorporated into an American flag on the back of our commemorative t-shirts. Hurry! This campaign is only available for a couple more weeks! https://braveheartsriding.app.neoncrm.com/forms/mongolderby

‼️ 5:00pm CST TONIGHT is the close of our Mongol Derby Virtual Auction! Click now to check out the items and be sure to place your bid before auction close. ⬇️ https://app.galabid.com/mongolderby2023/items

We are so grateful to our wonderful community who have generously given towards our bucket-raiser. 🪣 We are already HALFWAY to our goal of 50 new water buckets for our herd! If you'd like to gift a bucket, click this link to support❤️: https://braveheartsriding.app.neoncrm.com/forms/valentine

Buckets for Our Herd

UPDATE! Halfway to our goal! Thank you to all who have gifted a bucket for our herd so far! 25 buckets to go! It’s Valentine’s Day! ❤ Thank you to those who have already made our herd their valentine this year by giving to our water bucket fundraiser. There is still time to share the love – click this link to donate! https://braveheartsriding.app.neoncrm.com/forms/valentine

Team = When all are working together with hearts pointed in the same direction. At BraveHearts there are a few things we love: God, country, horses, lifting up those who need and want it. We have had one heck of a year. We have laughed and cried, celebrated and mourned. We have fed, watered and cleaned endless stalls for our herd. We have taught and delivered thousands of lessons and therapy sessions. We have sidewalked and led a million circles. We have raised millions to pay for our farms and everything needed to continually support our meaningful mission. The word team doesn’t even begin to describe the horsepower here. We are blessed to work toward a question that is massive and fuels our hearts. Why does the need to help more through horses, always outweigh resources? Time, energy, funding and so we keep working. We keep volunteering. We keep serving. All of us pulling a very big wagon of hope and love. We weathered every season in 2022. We have done a great deal, not because it’s easy, but because being brave lives in our hearts. And our hearts are very full as we look back. A massive group of people from all over the country to help our farms using their God given gifts. Horses and humans intersecting together in the most beautiful, natural, life changing, symbiotic relationship. Every day we pray, we groom, we halter, we doctor, we turnout, we water, we order, we fix, we teach, we sweep, we treat, we call, we zoom, we schedule, we email, we design, we document, we file, we plan, we budget, we meet, we haul, we pay, we raise, we feed, we clean, we report, we lead, we help, we write, we walk, we talk, we train, we saddle, we bridle, we ride. Some choose not to do the work or believe it’s really not necessary - but our team is driven. Every smile received when our horses show up fuels our team. Some may not see it from where we sit in the saddle. We are far from perfect, but we will spend a lifetime learning and trying. That try