Atlanta's Chastain Horse Park plans to expand therapeutic program

ATLANTA - Tucked away in one of the busiest parts of Atlanta is one of only two urban horse parks in the country. Chastain Horse Park has sat off Powers Ferry Road since the 1930s. It serves thousands of people every year through therapeutic programs, and now it is undergoing a big transformation.

"Chastain Horse Park's mission is to empower individuals of all abilities through life-changing relationships with horses," the park's Executive Director Trisha Gross said.

One of its main purposes is helping people with cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities through therapeutic programs.

"In our therapeutic program, we offer three different kinds of services. We offer therapy, and under therapy, we do physical therapy, occupational therapy, mental health therapy," Gross said.

They help people as young as 2 years old to people up into their seventies through partnerships with the Shepherd Center, Atlanta Public Schools, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Wellspring Living, and more.

"In a typical year, we conduct 5,000 give or take therapeutic sessions. Any given month we fill 1,200 to 1,300 volunteer slots," Gross said.

Volunteers like Heather Anderson. She joined this past May.

"You're here to really either work with the horse or work with the clients, and you forget about everything else that's going on in the world around you. And anything that's prohibiting them in the real world is possible here at Chastain Horse Park," Anderson said.

She's seen firsthand how powerful these sessions can be.

"The transformation is incredible. We were with one client, and she spoke her first words at Chastain Horse Park, and we didn't know that those were her first words until after the session, and everyone who was involved in that session was just overwhelmingly happy that we could be a part of her story," she said.

Now the park is trying to grow.

"We kicked off a capital campaign at the end of 2019 - interesting timing - but we are so proud of our success. We raised nearly $10 million to rebuild our facilities to expand our therapeutic program. That is our goal," Gross said.

Construction is going on now, right next to the lessons. They're building a new therapeutic horsemanship center with a new barn, clinical, educational and administrative space, and a new covered arena for the therapeutic program.

"We will be expanding programs really across the board with probably most of it in our outreach programming because we believe that partnering with like-minded organizations throughout Atlanta we can really make a very very significant impact," Gross said.

Helping them change even more lives, one session at a time.

If you're interested in learning more about Chastain Horse Park, you can visit their website here.