Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.25.2009
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
The recipient of this week's Ben's Bell is Nancie Roahrig, who helps ailing children feel better through visits with therapy horses and ponies.
Roahrig was nominated by two of the people who witness the happiness — and physical benefits — the visits bring to the children. Jill Bemis, CEO of Children's Clinics for Rehabilitative Services, described Roahrig as "magnificent."
"The visits allow them to be distracted, to take their minds off medical procedures and doctors and casts and everything they're going through," Bemis said. "It's a few moments of just being a happy child."
Allison Woods, a child life specialist at University Medical Center, also nominated Roahrig around the same time as Bemis. Child life specialists arrange for activities and playtimes for pediatric patients and help them deal with procedures, too.
"The kids who see the horses talk about it for days afterward," Woods said. "They tell their parents and family members who come in. They're very excited about it all."
Roahrig said she got involved with horses about 15 years ago, when her teen daughter decided she really wanted one, and the family moved to horse property.
The only problem was that her daughter soon made another discovery — boys — and, so, Roahrig found herself spending more time with the horse.
Luckily, she loved the gentle creature. And soon she was learning how to drive carriages, and her stable expanded.
Then, about 11 years ago, a friend's daughter developed leukemia, and her family spent countless hours at UMC, hoping for a miracle that didn't come.
The other mother confided in Roahrig afterward that if her horse-loving daughter had been able to have a four-legged visitor at the hospital, her daughter's last days would have been a bit brighter.
Roahrig had been a home health-care provider since 1994 and knew the importance of loving care. And her friend's story inspired her to do more. So she called the child life specialists at UMC and asked if she could bring her horse by to cheer up the pediatric patients. The folks at the hospital already had therapy dogs that came in, so it seemed like a natural expansion.
"We started out with a Clydesdale, a saddle and a ladder," Roahrig said. That Clydesdale, Lenny, was a gentle giant, she said, who would happily walk to the steps of UMC and let child after child climb aboard or just pet him or give him treats.
Her work blossomed from there, Roahrig said. She and Lenny began visiting nursing homes and retirement centers as well as the Children's Clinics for Rehabilitative Services, Tucson Medical Center and hospices.
Then she began bringing ponies and miniature horses with her, which made some of the visits a bit less, well, vertically challenging. Three years ago, she converted her therapy and her carriage programs into a not-for-profit, Step Up Into T.L.C. (the initials stand for Therapeutic Loving Caballos).
Now she has nine horses — and six of them are equine volunteers, including an Arabian, another Clydesdale, a couple of ponies and a miniature horse named Snickers who actually rides the elevators at UMC with her to visit the patients who can't leave their beds. Snickers has some special sneakers that let him walk on the tile. He also has costumes, including a cowboy outfit that he wore after Rodeo Week, and different hats.
He even once wore a miner's hat, complete with a big light.
There's pony-painting, too, so that kids who can't ride due to their conditions can still interact with the animals. Roahrig brings water-based paint and lets the children decorate ponies Dillon and Mosey. "It's a live canvas and they love it! Even some of the doctors and the nurses get in there," Roahrig said. "As soon as I come home, we wash them off, and it just melts away."
The experiences are invaluable to the patients at the Children's Clinics, Bemis said. The kids there are being treated for conditions that can require multiple specialists as well as physical, occupational and speech therapy. That includes children with spina bifida, cerebral palsy and other ailments, she said.
Roahrig visits a couple of times a month, she said, "and some of these kids are seeing a pony for the first time."
"Some of the kids aren't even verbal, but they have these smiles on their faces that are unbelievable," Bemis said.
She and Woods also praised the therapeutic benefits the visits provide. "I truly believe that the pet therapy and in particular the ponies are beneficial to helping kids recover," Woods said. "It gives the kids a chance to hold on to something, to pet something, to feel another being and also get some relief out of being able to sit up in bed and maybe ride the pony.
"And Nancie in particular provides almost as much therapy as her horses do. She has such a calm demeanor. The kids pick up on that and feel so comfortable around her," she said.
Both women had been thinking for a while of nominating Roahrig, and Bemis finally found time recently. Woods independently filled out her own form soon afterward. The folks with the bells would have chosen Roahrig just based on the first nomination, but the second one sealed it. The celebration took place recently when Roahrig visited the Children's Clinics.
Everyone gathered outside for the ceremony. There was a table with lemonade and cookies for people — and another with apples and carrots for ponies. "It was so fun! And what an honor," Roahrig said afterward.
She said she couldn't do what she does without the many people who volunteer with her group and without the dedicated staffers at the facilities she visits.
And she thanked her family, including parents who instilled in her a clear sense of community service.
But, she said, the work is its own reward. Seeing the children smile and watching seniors reminisce about childhood memories as the horses gently nuzzle them is beautiful, she said.
"That's what keeps us doing it — all the smiles and all the wonderful little miracles that happen along the way."
L. Anne Newell