ORLANDO, Fla. -- Many children are involved in sports. It’s estimated that 65 percent of children play sports in America (http://WikiAnswer.com). The ones neglected are those with disabilities.
Heavenly Hoofs is changing that statistic. They are a therapeutic horseback riding center, started in 2002, and located at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee. Their mission is to provide equine assisted activities to enhance the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of individuals with life threatening illnesses, disabilities, and at risk youths.
“Animals can be a bridge between a kid’s world and our world,” said Shelly Williams, 40, an instructor at Heavenly Hoofs for five years.
The gate of a horse is similar to the gate of a human. This helps kids with disabilities to gain balance, focus, coordination, flexibility, and muscular strength.
“A kid came to us with leg braces and after two years here, he now runs and plays with no braces,” said Williams.
After an eight to 10 week session, Meredith Syed from Orlando saw a dramatic change in her son, Adam, nine years old who has Down syndrome.
He has become gentler with the horses and other animals, follows directions, and has a new vocabulary to use.
At age three, Adam was “afraid to sit on a swing and now he’s sitting on a horse backwards,” said Syed.
Another parent who saw a great chance in their child was Thomas Bufkin from Saint Cloud. His daughter Grace, 11 years old has Autism. She used to shake her hands constantly, but since riding she learned to use her hands to grip, showing motor skills.
“Programs like this really help,” said Bufkin. “Instead of banging her head on a wall, she’s learning motor skills and how to use her body.”
Volunteers warm up the horses before letting the children ride. The children then help groom and saddle up the horses.
Each horse has a 90 day trial period for the instructors to see if the horse can handle the special needs of the children. Usually the best horses have mellow attitudes, are not scared of loud noises or fast objects, older, and/or ex-show horses.
While riding each child has two to three volunteers at their side walking with them offering support and encouragement.
The children learn how to make the horse walk, trot, stop, and back up. At the end of each lesson they play games such as Red Light-Green Light, basketball, and Simon Says.
To volunteer or have your child ride at Heavenly Hoofs, contact Amy Glester or Megan Edge at (407) 933-RIDE or at http://volunteer@heavenlyhoofs.com.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
mike adkins revised
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Pastor Mike Adkins of Grace Fellowship Church spoke Wednesday to the Valencia Journalism class at the West campus.
The question and answer style discussion focused mainly on Adkins involvement in his church and his time serving the Orlando community with the Destiny Foundation.
“Our church is for people who don’t really know about God,” said Adkins. He says he especially likes to attract people who are not directly from a Christian background.
Adkins’ goal for his church is not to “shove Jesus down their throats,” but to “help people take the next step to God.”
To help his church members and his community on Easter, Adkins teamed up with the Destiny Foundation and collected 500 bags of groceries to give away to the needy at the Easter at Eola event, in Orlando.
“Instead of giving a hand out, we’re giving a hand up,” said Adkins about the people who come to Destiny Foundation for help.
Not only does Adkins help with the Destiny Foundation, he travels with his church to Rwanda where he participates in building wells, providing clean water for the villages.
Together the Rwanda project and the Destiny Foundation have raised about $1.8 million.
If you are in need of help, wish to donate your time or money, please visit the Grace Fellowship website at http://gogracefellowship.com, or the Destiny Foundation at http://battlepoverty.org.
The question and answer style discussion focused mainly on Adkins involvement in his church and his time serving the Orlando community with the Destiny Foundation.
“Our church is for people who don’t really know about God,” said Adkins. He says he especially likes to attract people who are not directly from a Christian background.
Adkins’ goal for his church is not to “shove Jesus down their throats,” but to “help people take the next step to God.”
To help his church members and his community on Easter, Adkins teamed up with the Destiny Foundation and collected 500 bags of groceries to give away to the needy at the Easter at Eola event, in Orlando.
“Instead of giving a hand out, we’re giving a hand up,” said Adkins about the people who come to Destiny Foundation for help.
Not only does Adkins help with the Destiny Foundation, he travels with his church to Rwanda where he participates in building wells, providing clean water for the villages.
Together the Rwanda project and the Destiny Foundation have raised about $1.8 million.
If you are in need of help, wish to donate your time or money, please visit the Grace Fellowship website at http://gogracefellowship.com, or the Destiny Foundation at http://battlepoverty.org.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Essay question no. 4
1. My learning experience from using the Wall Street Journal and having quizzes on them instead of using a conventional textbook is a good experience. I have learned more from the newspaper than I would have ever from a textbook. Naturally textbooks discourage students because it's "just another dumb textbook" and it has a lot of learning material in them that teachers do not cover in class and expect the students to read on their own. Most students will not read the chapters fully. When using the WSJ, it gives the students more understanding of today's world and things that are happening around us. Reading the paper did not affect my schedule at all because I have an hour and forty-five minutes in between classes so I read the stories then. It actually keeps me entertained for that amount of time.
2. I'm not sure if I will continue subscribing to the WSJ because of the money. If my parents are willing to pay for it, then I will keep subscribing. My mom sure does love to steal my newspaper and read it. More than likely I wont continue with it because I already get the Orlando Sentinel. I think one newspaper is enough.
3. I really don't have any suggestions for you to make the class better. I loved how we went through each mass communication there is; form books to the Internet.
4. I am definitely going to pursue a career in mass communications based on this class. It gave me a broader view on mass communication and helped me to decide that I really do want to go into a career for communications.
2. I'm not sure if I will continue subscribing to the WSJ because of the money. If my parents are willing to pay for it, then I will keep subscribing. My mom sure does love to steal my newspaper and read it. More than likely I wont continue with it because I already get the Orlando Sentinel. I think one newspaper is enough.
3. I really don't have any suggestions for you to make the class better. I loved how we went through each mass communication there is; form books to the Internet.
4. I am definitely going to pursue a career in mass communications based on this class. It gave me a broader view on mass communication and helped me to decide that I really do want to go into a career for communications.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Pastor Mike Adkins
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Pastor Mike Adkins of Grace Fellowship Church spoke Wednesday to the Valencia Journalism class at the West campus.
The question and answer style discussion focused mainly on Adkins involvement in his church and his time serving the Orlando community with the Destiny Foundation.
“Our church is for people who don’t really know about God,” said Adkins. He says he especially likes to attract people who are not directly from a Christian background.
Adkins’ goal for his church is not to “shove Jesus down their throats,” but to “help people take the next step to God.”
To help his church members and his community on Easter, Adkins teamed up with the Destiny Foundation and collected 500 bags of groceries to give away to the needy at the Easter at Eola event, in Orlando.
“Instead of giving a hand out, we’re giving a hand up,” said Adkins about the people who come to Destiny Foundation for help.
Not only does Adkins help with the Destiny Foundation, he travels with his church to Rwanda where he participates in building wells, providing clean water for the villages.
Together the Rwanda project and the Destiny Foundation have raised about $1.8 million.
If you are in need of help, wish to donate your time or money, please visit the Grace Fellowship website at www.gogracefellowship.com, or the Destiny Foundation at www.battlepoverty.org.
The question and answer style discussion focused mainly on Adkins involvement in his church and his time serving the Orlando community with the Destiny Foundation.
“Our church is for people who don’t really know about God,” said Adkins. He says he especially likes to attract people who are not directly from a Christian background.
Adkins’ goal for his church is not to “shove Jesus down their throats,” but to “help people take the next step to God.”
To help his church members and his community on Easter, Adkins teamed up with the Destiny Foundation and collected 500 bags of groceries to give away to the needy at the Easter at Eola event, in Orlando.
“Instead of giving a hand out, we’re giving a hand up,” said Adkins about the people who come to Destiny Foundation for help.
Not only does Adkins help with the Destiny Foundation, he travels with his church to Rwanda where he participates in building wells, providing clean water for the villages.
Together the Rwanda project and the Destiny Foundation have raised about $1.8 million.
If you are in need of help, wish to donate your time or money, please visit the Grace Fellowship website at www.gogracefellowship.com, or the Destiny Foundation at www.battlepoverty.org.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Essay 3-social networking
The social networks I use are Facebook and Myspace. I spend around 7-10 hours a week (an hour a day)on Facebook; it's the network I prefer to use and like the most. For myspace I usually just check to see if I have any messages or comments a couple times a week. The most I spend would be an hour a week on that network.
I prefer facebook because it usually consists of older people. Not many 12-15 year olds have a facebook; they are all on myspace. Also, on facebook you don't get as many "creepy" people asking to be your friend. On myspace I usually get at least one person a week asking to be my friend only because they think I'm "hot". I personally don't care if a random person from, let's say New York, tells me I'm hot. I will agree with them but why would I want to be friends with? Because they called me hot? No thanks.
Facebook is pretty important to me. I get to talk daily to my friends from back home (Chicago). I don't like to talk on the phone for some unknown reason...I probably get it from my dad, so facebook is a great way to stay in contact with friends. It's also very handy when you see someone at school and want to get to know them with out actually talking to them. All you have to do is do a little facebook creeping; type in the persons name in the search engine and it will find people that have the same name. You get to see if they're weird or not before you talk to them in person. I do that a lot haha, so I'd definitely pay an annual fee for facebook. The most I'd pay would be $20. As much as I use it, I think that is a reasonable price for just one year.
I prefer facebook because it usually consists of older people. Not many 12-15 year olds have a facebook; they are all on myspace. Also, on facebook you don't get as many "creepy" people asking to be your friend. On myspace I usually get at least one person a week asking to be my friend only because they think I'm "hot". I personally don't care if a random person from, let's say New York, tells me I'm hot. I will agree with them but why would I want to be friends with? Because they called me hot? No thanks.
Facebook is pretty important to me. I get to talk daily to my friends from back home (Chicago). I don't like to talk on the phone for some unknown reason...I probably get it from my dad, so facebook is a great way to stay in contact with friends. It's also very handy when you see someone at school and want to get to know them with out actually talking to them. All you have to do is do a little facebook creeping; type in the persons name in the search engine and it will find people that have the same name. You get to see if they're weird or not before you talk to them in person. I do that a lot haha, so I'd definitely pay an annual fee for facebook. The most I'd pay would be $20. As much as I use it, I think that is a reasonable price for just one year.
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