Community Service

It is a commonly held belief that one random act of kindness can change the world. If this is true, then how much power does an act of kindness perpetrated every week hold? I do not know, but one could argue that I have made it my goal to find out. Every week, I spend forty-five minutes driving from Sandy, Utah, to Herriman, Utah, to spend at least an hour trudging through mud or kicking up dust in the yard of Ching Farm Animal Rescue and Sanctuary. To realize that the reason I started these actions was simply for a veterinary assisting class, where the instructor required her students to spend at least an hour every week working with rescue animals, is strange. When she assigned me to Amber, I was nervous; I was not a “horse person,” and I had very little experience with the animals. After a month or two, however, I was completely comfortable around what I by that time considered to be my horse, and I grew to love her. For this reason, I continued going to the farm even after the academic requirement had vanished, and I still make it my goal to visit her every week. This routine appears affect only one geriatric little Thoroughbred named Amber, for she is the object of my attention for that hour on the farm; I brush the mud and dirt from her coat, pick the muck and rocks from her hooves, and shower her with affection. However, I am not the only one that visits. Typically, my father accompanies me to the farm and brushes Dreamer (a white male horse who is considered Amber’s “husband”) and Doc (a horse older than both Dreamer and Amber with arthritis and a poor appetite). Though Dreamer has always been a fairly social horse, I have noticed improved behavior (as his tendency to seek attention from Amber while I work with her has diminished); Doc, who became very sick during the summer, has markedly improved and even gained some weight, though he still eats less than he should; and Amber, though rather antisocial, is better behaved around Doc (whom she was rather rude to) and around me (about which I am ecstatic). Of course, these improvements cannot be considered isolated events. Improved behavior from Amber regarding Doc (after my discouraging of her habit of nipping at him) encouraged Dreamer act similarly, which improved Doc’s life considerably and set a good example not only for the other horses on the farm, but also for the geese, ponies, goats, sheep, emus, pigs, and even the donkey, Sampson. Of course, perhaps more important is that I have continued to go to the farm, which sets an example for other students in the new veterinary assisting class, for my classmates, and for my family. In this way, my weekly not-so-random act of kindness may contribute to the improvement of Ching Farm, of Herriman, of Utah, of the United States, and, perhaps some day, of the world.