Mare Fair's Charity for 2023

 Good evening, Anons!

I hope you’re as excited for Mare Fair as I am! The hip new convention on the block makes its debut on September 29 and runs through to October 1st.

The convention auction's proceeds will benefit the local charity Fallen Oak Equine Rescue and Rehabilitation. I wanted to know more about this charity and why Mare Fair chose them, so I interviewed their Charity lead. Check it out below!

What is your connection to Mare Fair?

I’m the Chairpony of the Board of Directors for Snowpity, Inc., and the Charity Lead for Mare Fair

What is the name of Mare Fair's charity?

Fallen Oak Equine Rescue and Rehabilitation, Inc.

How did you hear about this charity?

We went online to look for charities in the area, like horse rescues.

We found one online, and someone said they do good work, and they’re small so we added it to the list.

We did a lot of researching using online tools for charities, and Fallen Oak was one of the ones that had smaller budgets. They were a small charity.

Some of the charities, you look around and realize they’re large charities, full-on businesses and stuff.

Fallen Oak looked like a pretty small operation.

I messaged them on Facebook to arrange a meeting, and we went down there.

By we I mean the brother of one of our Directors and myself.

We were going to go down and visit the charity. He’s somewhat of an expert on horses, so he’d know if all the horses were being treated properly and everything was on the up and up.

So we went down, we visited, I got to meet Kim, we got to meet some of the horses, and we spent like 2.5 to 3 hours just talking to her. It went pretty well!

She seemed to have a lot of the same kind of mindset as us.

She shared a love of horses, she wanted to help them.

It was a small operation like I said, she’s retired, and she had a lot of medical issues in her past. At one point she was paralyzed and couldn’t walk, and she eventually got better, but she’s dipping into her retirement fund to run the rescue, because of course you don’t want to say no to a horse if they need help.

Someone will come to the rescue and say they can’t financially support a horse any more, so the choice is either put it down or go out of their way to pick up the horse and rescue it. She brings her own truck and trailer to the horse to rescue them.

I really appreciated that kind of commitment.

That charity was our first visit, and it actually ended up being our only visit because after bringing the info and photos back to the Board of Directors they were immediately on board.

WOW, sounds like they’ve got heart but need our help!

Yeah, Kim is mostly the person who runs things, and there’s around 3 other directors who do work. The one who does most of the day to day work is Kim, and daughter helps her out.

She’s very excited, she loves the idea!

Even after I tried to warn her about some of the things, she didn’t care.

She sees it as a blessing. 

Thea helps with the rescue, but Kim is the day to day.

What kind of things does this charity do? 

People call up and say they have a horse they can’t take care of any more, and they come and pick them up so they don’t have to be put down. 

She takes in horses straight from the source, though the county animal controls around Florida also reach out to her if they find abandoned horses, if they find them wandering around or if there’s a property with horses roaming around, Kim is one of the ones they call to see if she can do anything for them.

When she brings the horses in, she gets them checked out by paying a vet to give them a checkup.

The vet will actually be at the convention as well!

She also has a dentist come down to check the horses, a dentist is pretty much the only way to see their age if there’s no documentation.Farriers come in to trim their hooves, she puts them on healthy feed, and if the horses have health issues they get their own medicines, some of them even have medicated diets. 

Feeding them, period, costs money, but she also takes care of them.

Wow, this sounds like round the clock!

There are two kinds of horses she takes care of.

There’s the horses that can find a permanent home, by getting fixed up and ready for adoption.

The other kind of horses aren’t able to be adopted for one reason or another, so she gives them attention, food, and medical care until their natural life is over.

She does all that, and there’s a lot of emotion involved in that.

If you look at her Facebook, she’s had to put down a few horses recently due to medical issues that are unfixable

She tries to work with the horse's behavioral issues, and if they can’t be tamed then they need cared for until they pass on.

Where is the horse rescue located?

It’s in an area called Belleview, Florida, which is kind of located NW of Orlando, not too far from I-75. It’s an area in Orlando near the city called Ocala, which is the horse capital of the world. 

There’s a lot of horse stuff there!

It was important to find a charity in the state, and preferably one which was close to Orlando itself.

What has your favorite part been working with this charity?

Working with Kim has been great. She’s really passionate about what she does, and she’s interesting to talk to.

I think the best part has not yet happened. I think my favorite part is going to be when we get to announce how much money we raised for them, and I hope she’s happy about it!

She could build some new shelters, update some fences, and give the love and care to the rescue that it deserves.

She was actually recently hit with a tornado and lost a lot of fence, so she can use all the help she can get!

Anything else you'd like to add?

I hope people, if they come to Mare Fair, take the time to go see Kim! She’ll be at the con each day, and she’ll have a vendor booth in the vendor stalls.

She’ll have stuff there for purchase, she’ll talk about the horses, she’ll have books with before and after photos of the horses.

She’s a talker, so she’ll talk to you all about how rescuing horses is going. 

She’ll be at the Spaghetti and Tendie dinner on Friday night, too!

She’s excited to go, she wants to go to the parties, she wants to have a good time, so if everyone has a chance to see her, go see her, and if you’re awake Sunday at 10:00 AM go to her panel, and go to the charity auction to help her out!

Lotta cool stuff there, especially in the Mare Gallery.

Help them out if you can by making a bid at the charity auction, because they need all the help we can give!