Saratoga News
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Photograph by Shaminder Dulai
An instructor shows (from left) J.T. Mason and his siblings Nia and Mija how to put on a helmet. The children were attending an adaptive horse-riding expo organized by Saratoga resident Annie Giomi. The event at Garrod Farms was to introduce horse riding to families who have children who attend Camp Costanoan, a facility for those with physical or developmental disabilities.
Mane Event: Saratoga's Annie Giomi earns her Girl Scout Gold Award
By Michele Leung
There's something reassuring about horses. Their majesty and sturdiness evoke that on-top-of-the-world feeling when you're riding one. Yet their long eyelashes and almost liquid eyes give an indication of their gentle nature. It's no wonder, then, that horses can be used as a therapeutic resource.
Saratoga resident Annie Giomi took her equine love and shared it with those least likely to enjoy it. As a project for her Girl Scout Gold Award, she organized a family picnic and horse-riding exposition at Garrod Farms in Saratoga for children with physical or mental limitations and their families.
Annie, 17, has been on top of horses since she was 9 and takes every opportunity each weekend to ride at Garrod Farms. She also used to take vaulting lessons, but an accident in junior high, when she flipped off her horse, was enough to convince her mother that vaulting was not to be in her future. However, she has stuck to her commitment of horse- riding.
"I've taken another step. I rent my horse. I take care of it and ride all the time," said the St. Francis High School junior.
To share her love of horses, Annie found a ready audience in the campers at Camp Costanoan, a recreational facility in Cupertino that serves children and adults with physical and developmental disabilities. The camp draws attendants from all over the Bay Area and from as far away as Sacramento and Texas. They stay overnight at the camp on weekends and participate in traditional camp activities, such as arts and crafts, and drama.
It was Christian Newby, Annie's riding instructor, who first connected Annie to Camp Costanoan. Besides giving riding lessons, Newby works with Camp Costanoan attendants in the therapeutic horseback riding program.
"This is my favorite thing to do on horses," he said of working with Camp Costanoan campers. "The camp mimics what a normal camp experience would be like. What is a camp without horseback riding? [Riding horses] is magical for them all the time. They never take it for granted."
Newby had been asking for volunteers to help him on weekends, and after several missed opportunities, Annie finally visited the campsite. After volunteering around Christmas time, making stockings for campers, she was hooked and convinced her Girl Scout project had to involve Camp Costanoan somehow. She decided to organize a day at Garrod Farms where camp families could be introduced to horseback riding and enjoy it together.
"The whole point of the day was to let these kids have fun," she said. "They have had so much stolen from them."
Tamisha Jackson, program specialist at Camp Costanoan, said the value of the horse-riding expo was that it allowed camp children, their siblings and parents to enjoy the day as a family.
"Rather than just putting attention on one child, this is something they can enjoy together," she said.
But staging the event required a lot of preparation. For three months, Annie coordinated everything herself, from doing advertising for the event and getting RSVPs to making goodie bags for the children and buying all the food. She got local grocery stores to donate gift certificates, 120 bottles of water and 240 bottles of Gatorade. For the entire event, she spent more than $1,000 of her own money, which she earned by horse-sitting.
"I was thinking of getting a car, but this is a much better cause," she said.
The day went off without a hitch, Annie said. Rain had threatened to put an end to the horseplay, but the weather cooperated, giving a rare day of sunshine. Children of all physical abilities, including those with Down syndrome or autism or in wheelchairs, gave the horses a try.
"It was perfect," she said. "There were no accidents, which was what I was worried about."
For several hours, Annie worked as a spotter, holding on to the children. The highlight of the day was the enthusiasm the riders exhibited, she said.
"They were saying 'yee-haw,' " she said. "They were having so much fun."
Sometimes, the children spoke gibberish to her or they got really close to her, she said. But it was one 14-year-old boy named Nick who made her day.
"He said it was better than a roller coaster," she said.
For some of the children, it was their first time on a horse. Newby said riding is an effective form of therapy because the horses can affect children with disabilities in ways humans can't. For unknown reasons, some children will not normally smile, but when they are riding a horse a smile will break out.
"Sometimes, we're not able to make connections, but they react to a horse," he said. "They put their hands on [the horse's head], and it stimulates their balance. The movement on a horse forces muscles to be stimulated."
Kimberley Dunham, another riding instructor, also noticed the palpable excitement of the campers.
"You could feel their excitement while on the ground," she said. "A lot of the kids were mute and hadn't spoken in a long time. But it was really neat to see how each of them reacted."
More than 120 people attended the picnic, and 32 of them had some sort of disability. About 20 of those with disabilities signed up for private adaptive riding lessons, which began April 23 at Garrod Farms. Annie said she'd like to see adaptive vaulting at the Special Olympics one day.
"Annie was amazing with her abilities to pull this off," Newby said. "I'm very proud of her. This was to be a day where these families, like any other family, could have a day out with their kids."
Annie's project was pretty involved. Gold Award projects range in scope, but many can be just as complicated, said Bernie Hoye, one of the directors at the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara Valley office. Annie said one Girl Scout in her troop made trash cans with animal heads for the San Francisco Zoo to discourage littering. Another taught young pregnant women who have no one to turn to how to cook and put together recipe books for them.
"It's not about whose Gold Award is better," Annie said.
She has one more year of scouting, and she will spend part of it cheering on the rest of her troop members as they complete their Gold Awards.
Administrators with the local Girl Scouts office liken the Gold Award to a thesis project, and the process to get to a Gold Award can be a long one. Girls must complete a series of prerequisites before considering a project. Prerequisites include 35 hours of leadership, which Annie completed by going to Mexico and working with orphans, and starting a business or getting an internship, which she satisfied by working at Garrod Farms. She also had to be interviewed by scouting officials to get her project approved and write about how she planned to accomplish it.
Doing the project taught Annie how to be organized.
"Everyone should do this once because you learn so much," she said. "There is a good sense of well-being. You help people. I hated it during it because of all the work, but it's all worth it."
Annie said she had worked with disabled people on a limited basis before, but those experiences didn't make much of an impact. However, working with those who attended the horse riding expo was different.
"People don't realize how rewarding it is to work with them on a horse. How can you not feel blessed that you can be a part of this?" she said. "I was so happy that I helped give this to them."
