My Volunteers Morning At EST 21st October 2011

My Volunteers Morning At EST 21st October 2011
The Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys (EST) is a UK based charity dedicated to providing riding therapy with donkeys to children with special needs and disabilities for which I am a volunteer. I went down to help a couple of days ago, and we had two schools who attended the centre in the morning.

In addition to the children riding the donkeys, the centre also has a little cart pulled by one of the specially trained donkeys.  This cart is also used to take less abled bodied children and also can be adapted to take wheelchair bound children, so they too do not miss out.

Pedro was the donkey used this morning to pull the cart, and I was assisting with the cart riders.  We had some lovely little children on the cart this morning, but one little girl stood out for me.  Whilst I was talking to her, it came up in the conversation that she was looking forward to her lunch at the centre and as it was Friday she always had fish and chips at school and every Friday when she has attended the centre she always had fish and chips which she told me was her favourite meal.

I did ask her, did she prefer her donkey cart ride or fish and chips and after a little pause she gave me the correct answer which was of course the “donkey cart ride”. However fish and chips was mentioned a few more times and as the ride was coming to an end and it was nearly lunch time, she was anxious to go and enjoy her fish and chips.

Unfortunately I  found out, that fish and chips was not on the menu today, but there was spicy meatballs instead – oh dear!!  I hope she wasn’t too disappointed.

My Volunteers Morning At EST 21st October 2011