WAILUA — Over the course of tackling the clearing of about 10 acres of land to expand its available acreage for riding trails and pastures, Healing Horses Executive Director Samantha Henriques has found concrete slabs, light bulbs, buckets, and even a filing cabinet.
“You may have noticed driving through town that across from the Coconut Marketplace we’ve been cleaning off the fence line,” Henriques said. “We put in a brand new fence and we’re going to continue cleaning all the invasive koa and lilikoi and all these plants that just don’t belong there.”
And now, Healing Horses is asking for the community to come help. Sunday, the nonprofit is hosting a community clean-up and volunteer potluck (individual servings only). Volunteers are asked to bring their own gloves, rakes and tools to make sure that all hazardous items are removed from the area that will soon be converted.
The event is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. with COVID-19 precautions in place, including social distancing, collecting names and contact information and requesting that volunteers have their vaccination cards or proof of negative COVID-19 tests available.
The team at Healing Horses has helped people of all abilities through equine-assisted activities and therapies to help improve physical, cognitive, social and emotional well-being.
The land, owned by Bette Midler, is leased to Healing Horses, which has utilized about five land acres and one pond acre since 2013. There’s an additional 10 acres full of invasive plants the group would like to turn into a pasture for the horses.
“There’s probably about 30 years worth of garbage (that) has been thrown out of cars,” Henriques said Wednesday. “There’s bottles, tires and guardrails. I mean, this was just in the forest. And as we clear it, we’re finding more and more stuff.”
But the vision is there.
“It’s kind of unsightly right now, but the plan is we’re going to gather up all the trash, finish the clearing, finish the fencing, then put interior fencing inside of the perimeter fencing so that there’s a riding trail around the entire perimeter with interior pastures with riding trails between,” Henriques said.
This is just step one of three to make the “remarkable transformation” for the program. A grant Healing Horses received will run out in about three weeks, so a lot of this work needs to be done soon so that heavy machinery can be used with the funds.
“The more hands you have, the lighter the load,” Henriques said.
• Info: healinghorseskauai.org
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Sabrina Bodon, editor, can be reached at 245-0441 or sbodon@thegardenisland.com.
