Local kids are learning life lessons — on the back of a horse!
A new Pittsburgh police program is teaching kids more than just how to ride.
A Pittsburgh police detective tells Channel 11 that, after she fell in love with the department’s mounted unit, she wanted to teach inner-city kids how to ride horses.
At Sunni Bell Stables, that dream is coming to life.
“I’m grateful to be a vessel,” Detective Dorothea Leftwich said.
As the first Black woman on Pittsburgh police’s mounted unit, Leftwich is bringing her passion to nearly 20 kids in her Riding into the Future program.
“Inner city kids, they see a lot of crime, so my goal with them is to get them to escape those types of scenarios, give them somewhere where they can be free children and play,” she said.
And she wants them to find healing, as she did when she started riding.
“I was battling grief with my father, and I needed an outlet, and I didn’t recognize that I could get it through an animal.”
For the kids, it’s been a journey of their own.
“My favorite part is really watching other people get to learn about horses, the overall experience of riding and being in nature,” said Bryanna Smith of Burgettstown.
The program is hopefully coming back for even more kids.
“It’s really about these kids and that they’ll have these memories and childhood experiences that really shapes us,” Leftwich said.
Sunni Bell Stables donated the space and horses for the program.
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