Program offers activities to children and adults with special needs
Published in the December 25, 2013-January 7, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Vietnam veteran Gregg Williams cares for Liberty at the One Step Closer facility in Morgan Hill.
As Gregg Williams brushes down Liberty’s copper brown mane, it’s easy to see he has a special bond with the horse. Williams grew up with horses and knows the special ways they think and behave. And in the last several months with Morgan Hill’s One Step Closer Therapeutic Riding nonprofit organization, the U.S. Army veteran, who served in Vietnam from 1971 to 1973, has found the equestrian animals give him a freedom to enjoy life much more.
Williams got involved with OSC through a Veterans Administration program that provides housing for homeless veterans as well as helping veterans like himself get reacquainted with society.
“The therapy for me is the contact I have with the horses,” Williams said. “Knowing animals is a difficult thing to do. And to be in balance with a horse that outweighs you by a ton, you’ve got to respect the animal and get the respect back. That’s one thing that veterans live and die for — it’s respect.”
On many Friday mornings, Williams leaves his apartment in San Jose and comes to the OSC ranch off Foothill Avenue in the eastern foothills of the South Valley. Here, he finds purpose by helping to clean the stables, brush the horses, and trot on the back of these animals in the ranch’s arena.
The OSC program was started in 2007 as a Christian-based equestrian organization using the human-horse relationship to help participants achieve their full potential — physically, emotionally, and spiritually, said founder Landa Kierstead. The program offers therapeutic riding and other equine-related activities to children and adults with special needs such as physical or emotional disabilities. It also helps youth-at-risk. Many of the OSC participants are military veterans, Kierstead said. OSC partners with local hospitals such as the Valley Medical Unit and the Veterans Administration as well family organizations such as Rebekah Children’s Services.
Gregg Williams takes Liberty for ride during a recent visit to the One Step Closer facility in Morgan Hill. Founder Landa Kierstead holds a rope. The human-horse relationship helps participants achieve their full physical, emotional and spiritual potential, founder Kierstead says.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Through riding on horseback or by playing ground games with the animals, participants gain healing and physical development, stimulate their learning, and build their confidence and self-esteem. All lessons are planned and supervised by a Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship-certified therapeutic riding instructor, she said.
“I got my first taste of horses when I was 10 when my dad was in the service,” Kierstead said. “He was in the Air Force. We went overseas to Okinawa and so we spent a year off base. So I got to spend a year with horses, and that was my introduction and I was smitten by them.”
After learning about a PATH program in Woodside, she and her husband Mark Kierstead decided to start a similar program in the South Valley to help people through natural horsemanship therapy methods.
“I just have a passion for horses,” she said. “I realized there wasn’t much happening here. So I got myself certified after being a volunteer for a while there in Woodside. I’m a certified therapeutic riding instructor with PATH. Ever since I made that decision, it’s been just amazing.”
Veteran Terri Demarest, who served in the U.S. Army from 1977 to 1980, came to OSC suffering from a painful herniated disc in her neck and other medical issues. A VA doctor recommended the program to help her deal with her physical problems.
“It was helping me try to be more natural in my walking, the easy movement of being on a horse and walking is good for my balance,” she said. “I’m learning to be more relaxed. And being here and meeting Landa and Mark, they’re so great. The relationship she has with horses is amazing. She definitely shows them respect and you can see that is what they like and they respond to her because she’s dealing with them on their level.”
One Step Closer rider Terri Demarest
Morgan Hill resident Connie Cameron began volunteering after her friend Brooks Carpenter died last year. Carpenter had been involved with the program, and she learned about it at his memorial. She had never been involved with horses before.
“It’s changed my life. It’s more therapy for me,” Cameron said. “I get a lot of out of just being outdoors with the horses. It’s always been my life dream to work outdoors. But the bonus is I get to work with these awesome veterans. When we give back to the community, it fills in the real needs we have. I can’t wait to be here.”
Much of the success of the OSC program is due to the dedication of volunteers such as Cameron, Kierstead said. The organization is always looking for volunteers, as well as financial and in-kind support to help it continue to serve its clients.
“I look at these veterans,” she said. “They stop everything to be here and to help. They keep helping because that’s the kind of people they are, so we want to serve them.”
