About a year ago a friend and I were talking about what we could do with our love of horses. We both had been hurt by someone that took advantage of our love of horses; we talked about needing to redirect our passion. That's when I came up with the idea of R.O.P.E. (Redirecting Our Passion for Equine). I never thought we would do anything with this idea.

We created a Facebook page on March 14, 2013. Within one week we had 45 members. After two weeks we have over 60 members and are getting bigger everyday. The group is already everything I ever imagined and so much more.

The purpose of the group is to "pay it forward". We want to help others without them having to ask for help. Simple things like buying somebody a bag of grain, a bale of hay, or a bag of dog food can help more than you know. You don't have to spend money to help someone out, you can clean someone's stalls, repair their fence, clean their water buckets or troughs, mow their yard, or any other simple act of kindness. Another option is to get a few friends together for a trail ride and each person throw in a few dollars, pool the money together to buy something to help out someone else. If you see a child (or adult) that is in awe of your horses take a few minutes to let them pet the horse and educate them about horses, you would be surprised how much that would mean to someone who loves horses but has never been fortunate enough to own one. One of our members needed someone to deliver a round bale of hay and another member was able to pick up the bale and deliver it to them later that day. (We have awesome members!!!)

We are planning to ride in the SGK Ride for the Cure, benefitting breast cancer research, in October 2013. We also hope to organize a memorial ride in honor of some member's friends who have recently passed away due to cancer in the spring of 2014.

This group is not about getting individual glory but coming together as a group to help other people. We encourage our members to just leave a note with "R.O.P.E." on it or to tell the recipient to pay it forward.

There is such a variety of people, with different intentions, in the horse world. I have learned so much about people through my passion for horses. I have learned that there are some people who, by my definition, are completely obsessed with horses, some to the point that they actually cause unintentional harm to them. Some people just seem to have horses, not because they care about them. Unfortunately, I have also learned that some people use horses to take advantage of other people. Most importantly I have learned that there are some really great people out there that love horses as much I do. R.O.P.E. gives people the opportunity to turn the negatives into a positive. We want to give back to people and educate people.

Be safe, have fun, and ride on... (Don't forget to vote if you enjoyed my blog.)