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Working together, the San Juan Bautista and Gilroy parlors of the Native Daughters of the Golden West (NDGW) secured the area’s first-ever charitable grant from the organization, which awarded $3,000 to DreamPower Horsemanship, a local equine therapy ranch.
The money will go toward supporting the Gilroy organization’s “Winnie’s Friends,” a June camp hosted for children aged 4 to 17 who currently have or have had cancer, as well as their siblings.
DreamPower director Martha McNiel said it’s a chance for the children to be outdoors, work with the horses and for a short time forget that they have cancer.
“They get to be around others who understand what they’re going through,” she said, “and it gives them a real sense of community and a peer group that they often are missing.”
Shauna Freels, the president of San Juan’s NDGW Parlor No. 179, said she got the idea when she attended the organization’s Children’s Foundation annual fundraiser at Sutter Creek in February and noticed a list of causes throughout California receiving funds did not include any from this region.
“Historically,” she said, “these grants have routinely gone to areas like Davis or Los Angeles. I felt strongly that we needed representation here to ensure some of that money reached the children in our local community.”
According to Jean Koehl, Hollister resident and recording secretary for Gilroy’s NDGW Parlor No. 312, when the Native Daughters and the affiliated Native Sons were first founded, they ran an adoption agency in San Francisco.
The Native Sons now focus their money on cleft palate research and treatment, she said, while the Native Daughters decided to diversify into helping middle-income California parents with medical expenses for their children.
“It provides for things like van lifts, orthodonture, hearing aids, or even surgeries for burn victims,” she said. “At the end of the year, they pick about 10 different camps to give to where children can just be children for a week.”
Freels said she became aware of DreamPower through friends who are on the board or who have volunteered for the organization. She praised it for the feeling of success it instills in children, veterans and other groups that receive support.
“They really give the opportunity,” she said, “for people who need a different type of connection to grow and to learn and to be a little more of who they are as people. Being around horses and that beauty helps them kind of better themselves.”
McNiel said that DreamPower currently manages around 15 different programs which primarily focus on mental, emotional and behavioral health for those with special mental, emotional, physical and medical needs, as well as law enforcement officers and military veterans and their families.
The ultimate goal of being in the program, she said, depends on which option is the best fit for an individual, with the goal of guiding them toward a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life.
“If it’s a child with autism,” McNiel said, “it’s going to look different than if it’s a military veteran with moral injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. So, it just depends on what problem or issue is bringing them in. We’re trying to help them solve the problem, whatever they have.”
For more information on DreamPower Horsemanship and its programs, visit the website or email dphgilroy@gmail.com.
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