Heart and Hand Center Day Camp

High above the din and distractions of city life, classrooms and chaos, Heart and Hand Center hosts therapeutic/recreational day camps each summer at their beautiful mountaintop ranch. Here, kids love getting to know the horses while learning to be the leader in horse/human relationships. Horses – like kids – need love, leadership and a language they can understand. Horses are amazing teachers and kids carry lessons learned from the horses with them throughout their lives.

Camp days at the ranch are filled with a balance of play, learning, hiking, yoga, drumming, making art, new friends and relaxing in hammocks overlooking the Bridger Mountains. At the end of each day, kids find a quiet place on top of the haystack or sitting beneath shady pines to write about their day in personal journals. At the beginning and end of each day, campers form a circle touching outstretched hands as they each share feelings and hopes. As the week goes on, even the shyest kids open up and learn to share within the safety of the day camp circle.

Heart and Hand Center’s wise horses teach campers to respect and set clear, but kind, boundaries. Lessons learned with horses help campers to improve human relationships. Campers are taught to play games with the horses that replicate leadership games horses play with each other in the herd. The kids have fun while learning new skills that improve understanding and confidence, laying a foundation for better boundaries in all relationships.

Each morning campers are asked if they want the horses to hike to the tipi site with the group and each morning they emphatically reply, “Yes, yes, yes!” For a small child, learning to safely lead an 1,100-pound horse is not a small accomplishment!

As they slowly make their way up the trails to spectacular views of the Bridgers and surrounding mountains, the group is inspired and energized. At the tipi site, high above the stresses of everyday life, campers make music with drums, create crafts and paint beneath the cool pine trees. Lunch shared together is always a favorite time to relax and get to know and understand each other better.

Back at the barn in the afternoon, the kids eagerly create 3D dioramas and paint two small boxes to contain their treasures and traumas. On the last day, sitting on blankets within the safe circle of the tipi, they fill these treasure boxes with notes of affirmation and encouragement. Then each person shares what his or her trauma box contains. With solemn ceremony and drumming, campers carefully carry those trauma boxes to the campfire, place them in the fire, and watch their hurts go up in smoke. Then, everyone celebrates by roasting marshmallows and making s’mores.

At the close of a fun-filled week of learning, laughing and leaning in together, campers have stretched and grown a little bit wiser and kinder to themselves and others. Everyone has shared and learned and become a close-knit group. It’s always hard to say goodbye and, in the final closing circle, the kids’ parting hope is that they can come back again to the next Heart and Hand Center Day Camp.

For more information and to register your child for summer day camps, email support@heartandhandcenter.com, call 406587-4036, visit the website at www.heartandhandcenter.com, follow them on Instagram at heartandhandcentermt or follow on Facebook at heartandhandcenter.