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Moberly Non-Profit Brings Heart, Hope to World of Equine Adoption

Sherri Crider’s young grandchildren jump off a nearby playground set and stumble over each other’s feet to greet us as we walk towards Guardian Oaks Farm. They are able to get back up and seem okay as Crider rushes in a perpendicular direction to go assist a horse about 30 yards away, that is laying on its side, unable to stand.

Sherri Crider sees herself not only as a mother or grandmother, but as a guardian to her farm’s horses. Crider runs Guardian Oaks Farm, a 501(c) non-profit organization which takes in animals that are either neglected or abandoned, or headed for slaughter.

Crider bends down near the horse, performing a treatment to its legs and hooves before eventually helping it back to a standing position. However, tending to the horses proves to be hard work for Crider.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it tomorrow, but I’ll give it all I got today,” Crider said. “I live with panic too because if I go down— down, down— what is gonna happen?”

Crider motioned to the horses in the pasture to suggest that if she collapsed, she may get run over. Crider, 57, is currently living with an aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis.

“It’s been really hard for me to be out promoting, out doing what I need to do— keep up with volunteers,” Crider said.

Crider says her husband, Dan, fell two years ago and currently lives with a traumatic brain injury. Both her and her husband are on disability. She said they are financially supporting the rescue by themselves, though for her it is a passion that she is not yet willing to give up as a result of her other life circumstances.

“It’s really hard, but we believe in it,” Crider said.

Crider’s daughter, Tori Erwin, said that Crider is so dedicated to Guardian Oaks, that she once tended to horses in need while dealing with a health scare of her own.

“I've watched her get up off of a hospital bed with a heart rate dropping down to 30 and leave there and go rescue a horse then go take hay to somebody,” Erwin said. “Somebody she didn’t even know that messaged her while she was in the hospital saying, ‘We need food. Help!’”

Crider has not been able to work with volunteers as much due to the effects of her Multiple Sclerosis, but she appreciates everything those who take the time to come out do for Guardian Oaks and its horses.

“These people, they seem really genuine, and they care a lot about the animals, and they sacrifice a lot,” Cherri Landis, a new volunteer at Guardian Oaks, said in reference to the owners and their daughters working out at the farm on a daily basis.

Landis’ first day volunteering at Guardian Oaks was March 1. She said the experience thus far was lovely.

“I think that these animals really need a place to go where they can be loved and rehabbed because when an animal is abused, if there’s no place for them to go, they get euthanized,” Landis said.

Landis said she believes she will be doing some of the grunt work and simple tasks such as grooming to start off until she knows the horses a little bit better, as some of them can be skittish, but already sees the foundation from which Guardian Oaks provided healing for horses and humans alike.

Guardian Oaks Farm previously worked to provide services for developmentally and physically disabled individuals through therapeutic riding and bonding with the horses. Crider hopes to offer this again one day as the results were unlike something many have ever seen.

“Joe [a horse] has got a broken hip, he's special needs. So we[’d] talk about that,” Crider said.  “And these kids in wheelchairs or limp or have a disability. They can come out here, and they don't feel different, you know, and they relate to the horses and the horses relate to them.”

Guardian Oaks has been open since 2012, but in order for the farm to stay open and restart its therapy programs, it needs support from the community. Due to her declining health, Crider is currently looking for potential volunteers with the same passion for rescuing horses as herself.

“I want people to want to keep it alive to come and be side walkers, and back riders and leaders and whatnot and see what it does for these kids,” Crider said. “So that they will want to keep it alive and keep it—whether it's here or not—keep it somewhere.”

Information on how to volunteer at Guardian Oaks can be found on the organization’s Facebook page.