About Us
Our Vision
Building Community While Learning From Nature
We are a nonprofit community center facilitating experiences with horses, nature, sustainable living, social inclusion, healing, and a sense of well-being.​
Collaboration is the foundation of our presence in the community. We work with all community services to design and facilitate the most beneficial presence of horses to integrate with ALL services who help people become the best version of themselves. The voluminous research on the benefits of horses to humans can be easily found in an internet search and we are a new facility nearby, willing to explore all the ways to introduce the truly inspirational ways these animals raise our awareness.
It would be the highest honor for us if our local community would see us as the first choice when thinking of interacting with horses and nature to find a way to become a healthy community of support during the current social upheaval in the United States.​​
Location, location, location
Our Center is 80 acres of fields, woods, trails, horses, gardens, an outdoor dance floor with a stage, campsites, a glampsite with a cook shelter and bathhouse. Easy access from all directions helps us serve a larger population and offer many options to host events.
At the crossroads of I-94 and US 131, halfway between Chicago and Detroit, we are easy to access from north, south, east or west.​
Founder Sandra RietKerk
Sandra still doesn't completely understand the attraction to horses that led here. Others have tried to call it a passion, but that never really fit. She tried getting out of horses a couple times and found such emptiness that it became clear there was no way to move forward in life without them. What is clear is that a traumatic childhood and a life with undiagnosed ADHD required some kind of grounding and healing, and today she is who she is as a result of the horses being there.
Her introduction to horses started as a toddler on her grandparents' dairy farm. The thrill of being on the back of a horse never left. Being the daughter of a single parent raising two kids in the 1960s, left no resources for horse ownership, so begging kept her going through her school years.
After high school she wanted to find a way to work in the horse industry, but was told that was not a good way to make a living, and that going to college to find a job that would support her horse habit was the best course. Truth be told, it wasn't the college education that ended up supporting her horse habit - she graduated with a teaching certificate from Western Michigan University in English and Communication - it was her skills handling and managing horses that kept her in horses. Somehow giving lessons, training horses and doing farm chores afforded her the continuing privilege of keeping horses in her life.
In the early 2000s Sandra was in a boarding stable where the owners invited her to train their horses and use them as lesson horses in her lesson program. She discovered the gratitude from the parents of her students for the emotional changes made in their children during lessons. Even her adult learners were making emotional changes based on their interactions during riding lessons. Beyond horsemanship, the lessons were increasing the emotional wellness in her clients.
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A friend introduced Sandra to Ulla Frederickson, a therapist who employed horses to assist her clients in transformation. Ulla encouraged Sandra to train to become an Equine Specialist through EAGALA. Over the years Ulla and many other experienced trainers have supported Sandra in her vision of finding a horse farm of her own and providing services. She is grateful to all of them for their continued support - what a great community to be in.
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Today Sandra continues to facilitate experiential learning with horses with other certifications. She is EAL Academy certified, ARCH Arenas for Change certified and most recently, Horse Powered Reading ® certified. She takes in regular continuing education through online sources in horsemanship, horse welfare, equine assisted learning, and business development.
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In 2025, Sandra filed for nonprofit status for her services so she could find ways to make the healing powers of horses more available to people in the community who may never be able to find a way to make it to a horse farm. This effort is challenging and at times, and discouraging, considering the social environment that keeps people wondering whether they are going to fare well in our new social system. We may need the wisdom of horses more than ever as we consider our place in this new world.
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