The Equine Information Source (EIS), is a team of undergraduate research assistants dedicated to researching, creating and providing information to equine communities across Canada about how to deal with and protect against COVID-19. Throughout the summer, our team has spoken with many people from equine communities, all of whom have their own stories to tell. Living through this pandemic has been hard for a lot of people, and the media has done its part in documenting the hardships of those in our community, but our team wants to share the positive stories and changes that have emerged from this.
A sense of community was always a large part of the horse world, as everyone who is in it knows. When tragedy hits, we come together and make each other stronger. Take for example barn fires or natural disasters that have proven this in the past. But a global pandemic has brought this to an entirely new level. People from across the country and the world are coming together to support and help each other through these hard times. This support comes in many forms, such as feed donations, volunteered land use for grazing, fundraisers and even simple tips and tricks videos or articles. Our community has never pulled together more than it has over the past few months and hopefully we can continue this trend.
The For The Herd campaign is a great example of a local fundraiser that was created to raise money to feed and house school horses in Ontario. This fundraiser was initiated by Jen Sweet, and run through Ontario Equestrian, who saw the struggle of school horse barns to support and feed their animals. To date, the campaign has raised over $190,000 in donations that will be used to make sure that the horses who dedicate their lives to teaching our young horse lovers to ride, will be safe, well cared for, and fed throughout the tough months that await them in the winter.