Disabled riders want donors to saddle up
TEAD needs to raise about $120,000 a year
Disabled riders will soon be back in the saddle, but the future of Hamilton’s therapeutic riding program is still up in the air.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re on our way,” said Dr. Shawn Middleton, vice-chair of the board of the Equestrian Association for the Disabled or TEAD.
It has been a bumpy road over the last two years that led to an indefinite shutdown in December and the sale of the 37-hectare horse farm in Mount Hope.
It’s scheduled to reopen April 25 with half as many horses, fewer classes and the leasing of part of the land it used to own.
TEAD needs to fundraise about $120,000 a year to survive.
It’s a tall order considering it brought in just over $16,000 in donations in 2015.
Tough decisions have to be made about whether to stay on the farm and rebuild its aging infrastructure or find a new home.
And it needs an influx of volunteers and board members to take on the load after cutting core staff to three from five and putting the board in charge of fundraising.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” said Dr. Lindsey George, chair of the board.
“We think we have got the organization to a much better place than we’ve been in a very long time. … We’re getting very positive feedback from the TEAD community. Some of our donors have said, ‘It’s about time you took these steps.’”
But not all members see it as a happy or sustainable ending.
Some question why the board of directors waited until TEAD was out of money to go public about the extent of the financial problems.
They want to know how a crucial land severance that could have saved the farm was dropped.
They ask how fundraising plummeted by 78 per cent in one year, ultimately pushing TEAD to the breaking point.
And they want to know why members weren’t given more of a say in decision-making.
“The process in how it played out, I think most of the members aren’t happy with,” said Cory Martin, who takes his seven-year-old autistic son Brady to TEAD. “For a lot of people, they came away with a complete lack of trust and confidence because there wasn’t transparency.”
The board says the organization has been struggling financially for about four years and has long talked about selling the farm so it “shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.”
“People are attached to TEAD so what feels like a threat to the organization is going to be understandably upsetting for people,” George said. “People have really wanted to know if we’re going to be OK and wanting to know what is happening. We’ve tried to be as open as we can with the information as we’ve learned it ourselves and made sense of it.”
But the last annual report and financial statements posted on TEAD’s website are from 2014. Fundraising was down by 20 per cent, but the overall picture was painted as rosy.
“In closing, I want to say I am excited about TEAD’s future. I call it seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” stated the message from the chair. “2015/2016 will see many of our dreams come true.”
Much of that optimism was around the city approving a severance application so TEAD could sell 31 hectares of agricultural land to pay off the mortgage and any outstanding debt. The organization would have continued to own the 5.2 hectares it uses.
But the approval came with seven conditions that had to be met within a year. TEAD did not meet the deadline and the approval lapsed.
“At that time, we were talking about leasing a property elsewhere,” said treasurer Teresa LaFave.
“The cost to do the requirements in order to get the severance was quite high. We made a decision not to spend the money. Why would we spend thousands of dollars we didn’t need to when were going to move to a different property? On further review, the potential new property wasn’t a good fit so we went back to the city.”
TEAD was shocked when the committee of adjustment denied two separate requests in May and July 2015 to sever the land.
“They squandered an opportunity,” said Martin. “If they had been able to sever the land, it would have paid their debts and allowed them to do the renovations.”
In the end, TEAD sold the farm in its entirety in December for $850,000 to a numbered company that lists Karol and Radoslaw Romanowski as its administrators. It has a one-year lease of roughly $3,000 a month and about $200,000 in reserve. The board says TEAD is far better off leasing.
“We’re not in the business of real estate; we’re in the business of providing therapeutic riding to children and adults with disabilities,” said LaFave. “We were looking at a huge mortgage, plus interest, plus your taxes every month when that money could be put toward the riding program, our staff and our facilities. It was a no-brainer.”
But paying members believe they had a right to a say in the decision.
“They sold this property without ever consulting anyone,” said Martin. “People were outraged.”
TEAD held a public meeting in November — right after announcing its indefinite closure.
But members led by Mike Moore had to petition to get a meeting with the board in February — more than three months after TEAD announced its closure and two months after it accepted an offer on the farm.
“There had been little or no communications from the board and they seemed distant and unco-operative,” Moore said.
There are also questions about why TEAD didn’t make it clear sooner that 2015 was disastrous financially. Donations dropped dramatically to $16,302 from $72,657 in 2014. Donations in kind were down 21 per cent and grants dropped more than 30 per cent. Total revenue dropped by more than $86,000.
“People did not realize how dire their finances are,” Martin said. “When you have a room full of people who would have been more than willing to do fundraisers, they are wondering why the board waited to let it completely fall apart.”
The board has taken over fundraising from staff and says its time for members to help TEAD survive.
“We need all the members to step up and be there for the organization,” Middleton said.
“We can’t do this on our own,” LaFave said. “We need all hands on deck now.”