From the first day that Richard Marlow walked into Oregon City air jordan 8 viii retro white orange blaze Sycamore Lane Therapeutic Riding Center he saw miracles going on all around me.

Marlow saw children and adults with a variety of disabilities, instructors and horses all working together to promote the benefits of equine therapy.

And now Marlow, an Oregon City air jordan 5 v raging bull defining moments package ii High School graduate and the development director at the center since this past February, wants to share that miracle and promote the center Air Jordan 3s through a run/walk, set for Sunday, July 28, starting at Clackamette Park.

He is calling the event the First Warrior Run, Walk Roll for three reasons. First, the center has initiated a new therapy program called equine facilitated psychotherapy, aimed at returning veterans with physical disabilities and traumatic air jordan 11 university blue white black 2014 stress issues, and second, the run will benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, a national organization set up to help soldiers in a variety of ways.

The part of the event title reflects the fact that the entire route for the run/walk is wheelchair accessible.

Marlow came up with the idea for the event because he was looking for open ended ways of funding events that could get bigger year after year.

Describing himself as a one man committee, Marlow has secured all the road permits from the Oregon Department of Transportation and the cities of Oregon City and Gladstone, in order to establish the best routes for the run/walk.

The event begins at Clackamette Park in Oregon City, goes along the Clackamas River Trail on air jordan 2011 white black anthracite the Oregon City side and air jordan 2010 anniversary white grey silver then crosses the bridge into Gladstone Cross Park. Participants doing the 5K walk will then turn around and go back to Oregon City. This came about because Marlow is a longtime TV producer, who said he was best known for the West, a air jordan 10 retro txt white old royal program that ran for more than 16 years.

Marlow hopes to draw at least 200 participants to the event, which he said will benefit worthy .

Money raised during the run/walk will help make Sycamore Lane equine facilitated psychotherapy program available to more local veterans. In addition, it will help the Wounded Warrior Project.

should appeal to a lot of people. You can help feeling for those young men and women coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq with beat up bodies and learning disabilities, he said.

Roots of Sycamore Lane

Sycamore Lane Therapeutic Riding Center was founded in 2008 by Dr. Suzanne Cleland Zamudio, a Portland area physician surgeon, who grew up on the Clackamas River Drive property when it was called the Sycamore Lane Welsh Pony Farm.

has a son who is autistic, and she understands the benefits of equine therapy, said Michelle Bianchi, program director at the center.

When Cleland Zamudio couldn find anyone in the area doing this kind of work, it became her dream to open a facility where a lot of people would benefit from equine therapy.

The mission of the Sycamore Lane Therapeutic Riding Center is to provide and promote therapeutic riding and recreation in a safe, professional and nurturing environment to children and adults with a variety of physical and cognitive disabilities, Bianchi said.

When the center first opened there were only six riders now there are 60. air jordan 19 white chrome grey Bianchi has been with the center for two and a half years, starting as a volunteer and working her way up to program director.

Bianchi grew up riding horses from the age of 5, and then put that activity on the back burner when she started college, getting a degree in kinesiology, which focuses on the movement of the body.

She also earned a teaching certificate and taught adaptive physical education at the elementary and secondary level in California. When she moved to Oregon three years ago, she had difficulty finding a job, so began volunteering at Sycamore Lane.

I volunteered here, it opened my eyes to the potential opportunities for using my horse background and my teaching experience, Bianchi said.

In addition to being program air jordan 14 xiv retro light graphite mid navy director at the center, she also is an instructor and the Oregon state chairman of the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International, an organization that certifies all instructors in equine therapy.

Variety of therapies

There are three kinds of therapeutic work offered at the center, Bianchi said.

The first is called therapeutic riding. Children and adults with a variety of physical, mental and emotional disabilities can learn horseback riding skills, with the goal of becoming independent riders. Skills include strength training, balance, sensory integration and spatial awareness.

Hippotherapy is taught by an occupational therapist, a air jordan fusion 5 white red black speech pathologist or a physical therapist with the goal treat the client using the horse as a tool. There are no riding skills, Bianchi said.

For example, an occupational therapist might have the client walk beside the horse, holding onto the reins, thus teaching fine motor skills that can translate into daily life, she said.