ANDERSON — After more than two months of fundraising, special education students at Anderson High School have raised enough money to host Agape Therapeutic Riding Resources at their carnival April 14.
Right before Thanksgiving last year, students in Cynthia Hyatt’s special education class decided they wanted to visit the Agape Therapeutic Riding facility this semester.
“(With) it being a pandemic, our goal was to have something to look forward to,” she said.
After speaking with representatives from Agape, the company agreed to bring horses and related activities to AHS to eliminate travel for the high school students. All special education students at AHS will be able to attend the carnival from 10 a.m. to noon.
For students who are able to, Agape will offer horse rides. Agape staff also will let students put clothes on the horses and talk the students through how to feed and care for horses.
In addition to having horses from Agape, there will also be face painting and temporary tattoos, farm animals, cornhole, a fishing game, craft station and live music. Paul Partezana, language arts teacher at AHS, plays the acoustic guitar and volunteered to perform live music during his lunch break.
Members of the AHS ROTC will help out with carnival activities.
To cover the cost of the event, Hyatt’s students made artwork, holiday decorations and baked goods to sell at school.
In her class, Hyatt’s students learn life skills. By doing the fundraiser, her students were able to learn life skills tied to money.
“What I did was a money theme to learn how to sell items and showcase items,” Hyatt said, noting that some of her students were able to check people out using a cash register.
The class had a goal of raising $600 to cover the costs of the event. Overall, the class ended up raising over $1,000 and continues to raise money through cookie sales. One of Hyatt’s peer tutors, senior Maygan McCloud, bakes fresh chocolate chip cookies each day to sell during lunch.
All excess funds the class raised will be donated to Agape, Hyatt noted.
This article appeared in The Herald Bulletin on April 5, 2022.