Subj: Thank you for everything
Date: 3/10/2007 3:37:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: (redacted)
To: (redacted)
Dear Mr. Halley and AWCF Members,
We want to thank you for the support you have given us to enable our son to continue his hippotherapy riding.
It has done wonders for him and for us as a family. Attached is a picture of Mack Wirth, our son and recipient of one of your riding scholarships. He now attends a special preschool and this was his first official school picture. What is so wonderful about this picture is that it shows Mack looking more normal than he has ever looked before. He is alert, he is happy, he pays attention to others around him and his drooling has lessened. We are so thankful and overjoyed.
My husband returned from an 8 month deployment in the Horn of Africa. While he was away, we kept busy by doing many therapies and (best of all) horse riding therapy, which motivates Mack and gets him talking and using his muscles. I want to share with you that when my husband returned, he turned to me and said, "He's a totally different boy!" Mack has made so much progress. We are so thankful for what you have done for us and for other families. We would not have been able to afford the horse riding therapy and you have made it possible for Mack--Thank You!!!
Mack just turned 4, so we still have the luxury of working on early intervention and working toward the goal of mainstreaming our son some day. Until then, we are thankful that we have seen Mack transform from a child who didn't care about those around him, wouldn't focus on anyone or look at you when you spoke to him, he wouldn't follow directions and would frequently frustrate his peers and brother due to his disabilities and lack of social skills. Now, we have a child who interacts with us, who tells us about riding the horse (named Goldfish, of all things!), has better motor control and body awareness, and can recount what he did in therapy in sentence form.
Words don't express it enough, but thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sincerely,
The Wirth Family