Volunteer
Volunteer Opportunities
Foster Care and Training Assesment:
MHARF is greatly in need of foster homes for healthy horses waiting to be adopted. It is extremely helpful to have approved facilities where we can temporarily place rehabilitated horses who are looking for their “forever” homes. Many of these horses are also in need of training assessments to make them more adoptable. If you have experience training horses and would be willing to take a horse into temporary foster care at your facility while you assess its training level, please see our Foster Care Application. If you aren’t a “trainer” and just want to help out by fostering a horse who needs temporary shelter, please feel free to fill out and send in the Foster Care Application as well!
Special Event Help:
MHARF is always happy to welcome volunteers for special events like our annual Trainers’ Challenge of the Unwanted Horse and our seasonal tack and rummage sales. We also often have booths at different equine and pet events throughout the year. Help staffing these booths is always welcome!
Publicity and Marketing:
Another way to make a BIG impact as a MHARF volunteer is to help us with Publicity and Marketing. Specifically, we are looking for people to help us get the word out to media outlets around the state about the important work we do! We would really appreciate having several people “on call” whom we can contact about upcoming events or humane cases so they can contact the media and help us obtain some much-needed publicity.
Emergency Transport:
We are always looking for volunteers with trailers and experience loading, hauling, and handling to help us transport animals in emergency situations. We are working on compiling a list of emergency haulers around the state.
Fundraising:
MHARF is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that runs entirely on donations. We are always on the look out for help in procuring monetary donations and sponsorship, both private and corporate. We also often need individuals to collect donations of goods and services for special events (for example, gift cards and items for silent auctions). We have also received many wonderful donations from clubs, groups, and individuals who have chosen to hold a “MHARF Benefit” Event. Some ideas for this would be fun shows, tack sales, rummage sales, bake sales, or informational booths at local feed or tack stores. If you are interested in holding this sort of fundraiser to help the horses at MHARF, please let us know!
MHARF Farm Help:
At MHARF we welcome volunteers to the farm to help on a regular scheduled basis or with special projects. This often includes cleaning stalls, mending fence, general maintenance of the grounds, and cleaning and pricing donated tack for our sales. Volunteers with special skills (such as electricians or carpenters) are also needed!
Assistance with Animals:
We do have limited volunteer opportunities working with the horses. However, since many of the equines at the MHARF farm have come from neglect or abuse situations, they often have trust issues or are relatively unhandled at intake. Because of this, we are only able to offer these “hands-on” opportunities to volunteers who are experienced in the handling of horses. If you are interested in hands-on volunteer work with the animals, please include detailed information on your experience level in the volunteer application. For safety reasons we are not able to allow volunteers to ride horses at the MHARF farm. For volunteers looking for the opportunity to assist MHARF by training and riding horses, we invite you to consider becoming a MHARF Foster Care provider or signing up to participate in our annual Trainer’s Challenge of the Unwanted Horse. Thank You!
Be a CHAMPION for the Horses at MHARF!
Voluntters at MHARF can also sign up with the CHAMPION Volunteer Program through the Equus Foundation and be eligible to win Ariat gift certificates, scholarships, or even a grant for your favorite equine charity (which we hope is MHARF!) with just 24 hours of volunteer service in 2019.