Community rallies after horse riding center known for helping kids with special needs burns down
CARTERSVILLE, Ga. - Beyond Limits Therapeutic Riding Center in Cartersville lost everything in a fire last month. Since then, the community has come together to get riders back in the saddle. But there's still a lot of need.
The center has been around for ten years helping kids with special needs.
"It is a place where they are free, and they are comfortable they're different kids when they come out here," parent Mary Cowart said.
"They get excluded from a lot of things. They get defined by their diagnosis. When they come out here, they're a person. They're not a diagnosis," Kimberly Oviedo, Beyond Limits Executive Director, added.
That all came to a halt on May 25. An electrical fire caused their barn to go up in flames. There were no injuries. One of their ten horses was inside. Neighbors were able to get that horse to safety.
"We literally lost everything, so we had no saddles, no stirrups, no reins, no bridles, no bits," Oviedo said.
"Of course I didn't sleep that night, and I spent most of Friday crying all day thinking ‘What are we going to do with the kids,’" she added.
But the community stepped in bringing supplies for the horses and donating money so they could get fit for new saddles. About ten days later, the kids were able to ride again.
"Because of the community and how gracious and wonderful everybody has been, we've really been able to get this program going again," Cowart said.
"They regress the therapy keeps them going. It's very important for their emotional development [and] their physical development. It's very important we got them back up on the saddle," Oviedo said.
The horses are being held in a temporary building right now, but their goal is to get a new barn built as soon as they can.
"They actually came in in the summer and the days with fans to cool off and have shade so that will get trickier as it gets hotter," Oviedo said.
If you'd like to help you can donate on the Beyond Limits website.