Financial struggles are endangering the life of a 44-year-old equine therapy organization that’s unique in El Paso County but which could shut its doors in a few months without an influx of funding, the new interim executive director of StableStrides said last week.

“We have a waiting list a mile long – 140ish people – and we don’t have enough money to pay me or other staff,” said Ret. Col. Michelle Ruehl, an Air Force Academy graduate who worked as a pilot in the military before recently retiring in Colorado Springs.

With two weeks on the job and a few holidays behind her, Ruehl, is working tirelessly to heave StableStrides out of its deep rut. It’s an admittedly heavy lift – but with a stubborn-as-a-mule attitude, it’s not impossible, she believes.

Eight employees have been furloughed, and Ruehl is forgoing a salary and galloping toward a goal of increasing donations to ward off closure.

Expenses related to a potential move from the center of Elbert in eastern El Paso County to another location, coupled with rising costs of supplies such as feed and vet bills, and reduced grant funding, have contributed to the financial crisis, according to Ruehl.

“People are tapped out – the focus has been on food scarcity, which is understandable – but we are taking care of our community in many ways, and we need the community to now help us,” she said.

StableStrides, which was incorporated in 1982 as Acts 19:11 to provide therapeutic horseback riding to disabled children and later changed its name to Pikes Peak Therapeutic Riding Center, offers various horse therapy programs for children and adults who have physical, mental and developmental disabilities.

Programs range from literacy training by reading with a horse to adaptive riding for all abilities, including people who are blind or using a wheelchair, to learning how to calm anxiety and cool anger, horses are a valuable friend in helping people of all ages turn obstacles into opportunities.

“There’s something special about the horse – they can help process grief and trauma because they mirror our behavior, thoughts and feelings,” Ruehl said. “If we have anxiety, they mirror it and help us let go of our pain.”

One client who was taking out his frustrations on his wife without realizing he was brimming with anger issues got paired with a horse that wouldn’t come near him in the arena. The man broke down, Ruehl said.

“He said, ‘Oh my gosh, is that how my wife feels?”

Ruehl understands firsthand the difference that equine therapy can make in someone’s life.

She began volunteering with StableStrides 26 years ago when she was a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy. She’d borrow a car and go out to the eastern-plains center to do whatever was needed on Saturdays. Eventually, Ruehl became a therapeutic riding instructor.

And no matter where her military assignments took her, she continued her volunteer work with nearby equine development centers.

A few years ago, after losing to suicide two close friends who also had been military pilots, she sought out the services of an equine therapy center in another Colorado town.

“Even though I have years of experience teaching it, I needed the medicine myself,” she said.

“The organization gave me a horse that had a lot of trauma, and we bonded. She was able to calm her anxiety, while I was able to process my grief. I have been healed by this work.”

New StableStride programs are scheduled to begin in a few weeks, including one for teenagers in foster care. Ruehl is also working on rebooting the organization’s affiliation with the Tricare insurance system and wants to rebuild a healing path for post-traumatic stress and other mental health struggles specific to retired and active-duty military.

The region has other equine therapy programs, but Ruehl said StableStrides is unique in that it provides mental health therapists from Children’s Hospital Colorado, along with volunteer schoolteachers who conduct the literacy lessons and herself as a trained suicide preventionist. The organization also accepts Medicaid, which others may not be equipped to do, she said.

The organization has 15 horses, which cost $10,000 a year each to support with food, medicine, boarding and other needs, she said. Donations also help fund scholarships for some clients and other needs.

In its entirety, the work benefitted more than 450 clients last year, with 130 or so at any given time enrolled in programs.

In the organization’s emergency appeal for funding, any amount of donation is appreciated, Ruehl said. To contribute, go to https://www.stablestrides.org/donate/.