Re: Kids Ride Free!!!!

["Karen Lininger" <khavera@hotmail.com>]

Thank you Frank for your concern and consideration of the kids.  You are 
so right in saying that if there is something that can keep them off 
drugs, out of gangs, and learn self respect and responsibility along the 
way......then it should be open to them.  Too often our kids are 
forgotten along the way side because "we" adults get so rapped up in our 
own lives.  I work in EMS and often see the kids that get wrapped up in 
drugs and gang wars instead of wrapped up in something as healthy as 
being in the out of doors learning about themselves and what they can 
really accomplish with their lives; and I don't work in the Intercity 
Ghettos either.  Most of the kids that I have dealt with have been from 
the middle to upper income families and left to their own devices 
because their parents are too busy with their own lives to get involved 
with their's.  The money that they spend on these kids for drug rehab, 
lawyer fees, hospital fees and so on, could have been better spent 
getting them involved in something such as Endurance Riding.  Then there 
are the kids that would love to do it; but don't have the means when it 
costs money.  I was involved with 4-H for 11 years while my daughter was 
in it; and it is an excellent organization and costs the kids nothing to 
join.  The kids earned the money that their club needed to do special 
stuff, get supplies and/or equipment for them, and so on.  It taught her 
a lot about responsibility, working with others, leadership, 
independence and so on.  I can't see why Endurance Riding could not do 
the same.  

Come on folks.....are we so wrapped up in semantics that we lose sight 
of the total goal here?  How better to expand the area of Endurance 
Riding than to support the kids that want to participate......for they 
are our future, are they not?

Karen
Bald Hills area, Washington

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