‘Joining Up’ a Love for Veterans with a Passion for Horses

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Special to United Methodist Insight | Nov. 7, 2024                                                                 

Wendy and Sierra Dorfman love veterans and their lives show it. Wendy is a Certified Lay Minister serving at Grace Union UMC in Hammonton, N.J., where she and her daughter Sierra are longtime members. Until July, Wendy also served for about a year as the assigned interim-pastor of Grace Union and nearby Winslow UMC, together a two-point charge.

On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, she will welcome worshipers to Grace Union to do what she began in late 2021, as the Covid pandemic began to wane: lead a heart-touching special service, at 7 p.m. to honor veterans of all military service branches. Attendees will celebrate with music, stories, scriptures, prayers and other activities to honor and remember those who served—both living and deceased.

While Wendy is not a veteran, the men in her family are: her husband Dave Dorfman, who chairs Grace Union’s administrative council; her son Michael; her late father, grandfather and great-grandfather, and her uncle, father-in-law and brother-in-law.

Sierra, 33, who once sang in Grace Union’s choir now attends worship on occasion. But this is one special occasion she won’t miss. Meanwhile, she is taking her own love for veterans a big step further.

Sierra graduates in May 2025 with a degree in Equine Business Administration. That degree will certify her ability to pair business entrepreneurship and managerial skills with the knowledge to raise and care for horses, including meeting their physical and mental health needs. Her specialization is in equine therapy, and her particular desire is to offer that therapy to military veterans.  

She plans to open and manage an equine therapy center with a focus on helping veterans nurture relationships with horses to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other military-related mental health conditions. Equine-assisted therapy is a proven means to relieve feelings of stress, fear, distrust, alienation, anger and other emotions for veterans and many others.

Sierra’s studies will prepare her to merge her lifelong love of horses with the skills to start and manage the center. No doubt her own journey to recover from a traumatic equestrian mishap plays a profound role in her aspirations and will help her design and oversee the therapeutic experience she hopes to offer to American veterans.

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Sierra was an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) from 2016 to 2022, until she fell from her agitated horse, was hit by its hoof under her protective helmet, and suffered a brain injury at the base of her skull. Inflammation, chronic migraines and grand mal seizures ensued, along with the loss of her driver’s license and her EMT career.

Turning trauma into therapy

After two years of medications and counseling, she is doing much better. And despite occasional bouts with pain and seizures, she is working hard to earn her Equine Business degree and maintain her 3.5 grade point average, including “taking so many psychology courses to help me work with veterans.”

“I’ve always loved horses, and I’ve been riding since I was 3,” she says. Now she can ride her beloved 28 year-old Quarter Horse Kona up to a half-hour before she has to stop, thanks to many therapeutic sessions with her trainer Sue. “She will always be my trainer. We really get each other.”

Sierra gets frustrated when she’s unable to do something on a horse that she used to do easily, like show-jumping fences up to 5-feet high. For years she did “catch riding,” which is riding a horse for its owner to “show” the horse and its abilities to someone else, like a potential buyer. “The thing that used to bring me joy and pride now can scare the ... out of me,” she says. “But that allows me to know a little of what some veterans are going through.”

Hearts Therapeutic Riding Center in Egg Harbor is the only one in her area, Sierra said. So, she wants to open another in South Jersey for two main reasons: to help veterans overcome their fears and trauma, and to rescue more horses from the “slaughter pipeline.” She already has a name for the future center: “Helping Horses Help Veteran Heroes.”

About 22 veterans commit suicide daily, Sierra said, although various reports range up to 40 vets a day. Many others die by “self-injury mortality,” otherwise known as overdose. And the rate of female vet suicides is increasing dramatically. Studies also say that “while mental health is an important element in understanding and preventing veteran suicide, this issue should not be solely viewed as a mental health issue that can be solved through counseling and prescription medicine alone....Veterans need a holistic approach that addresses a number of other issues impacting their wellbeing.” (Source: The State of Veteran Suicide (2024).

“I know my fiancé’s veteran buddies who are struggling, and they need more help,” said Sierra. “I went to school with one who served, and he’s not the same. He said to me, ‘Let us know when you’re ready to start that center. We want to help you.’

“I want it to be a safe, therapeutic space for them,” said Sierra. “They won’t have to ride horses if they don’t want to. There’s plenty more they can do.” That plenty more can include grooming, feeding, walking, teaching or playing with horses. What’s important is to build trust, tranquility, comfort and affection with each other, and to become mutually approachable, known as “joining up.”

“From a young age Sierra has had a heart for helping others,” said Wendy. “Being a granddaughter, daughter and sister to military veterans makes it only natural for her to want to help veterans because she feels they don't get the support they need.”

Wendy recalls her young daughter teaching handicapped children and adults lessons on horseback. “It was like she was always meant to do that. The pure joy I saw on her face made my heart jump for joy.  And now as an adult who has suffered a traumatic brain injury and PTSD herself, it is now giving her a deeper firsthand understanding of what our veterans face on a daily basis.”

John W. Coleman is editor-at-large for United Methodist Insight.