On Tuesday, May 20, a special group of Key Bank workers appeared at the South Windham farm facility of the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals to donate their time and talent on behalf of horses seized from neglect or abuse situations.

Key Bank employees Kathy Gilman, Diana Gagne, Paige Johnson, Derek Hebert, Debra Matthews, and John Grolley joined the effort at the farm. Society president Marilyn Goodreau welcomed the enthusiastic volunteers to the farm at 279 River Road and thanked them for taking their time to be good neighbors to the rescued animals and farm staff.

The Key Bank employees were treated to a brief tour of the big barn by Barn Manager Becky Jones. As the volunteers were introduced to the various horses and learned about the past mistreatment and cruelty endured by the animals, they expressed disbelief and frustration at those responsible. When asked why volunteers don’t provide hands on assistance with the feeding, grooming, and care of the horses, Goodreau and Jones explained to the group that many of the horses in the Society’s barns have experienced a level of mistreatment and starvation that has broken their trust in human beings.

Some of the horses forever carry the psychological damage that can occur when beatings, starvation, neglect, or misuse take place. As the volunteers learned, it takes some of the horses a great deal of time to heal both physically and mentally from the horrors of their pasts and to rebuild trust in human caregivers. As a result, some of the rescued horses at the Society can exhibit behaviors that make hands-on volunteer participation a potential risk for the horses and the volunteers.

“Consistency of personnel, routine feeding and handling procedures, and predictability are all elements that go into rebuilding trust in these beautiful animals,” Goodreau told the group.

Outside, under a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds, the Key Bank volunteers rolled up their sleeves and got to work scraping and painting an enormous section of board fencing around a back pasture. Sporting bright red T-shirts emblazoned with the legend “Community is Key,” the group of four women and two men quickly developed an efficient system for scraping and re-painting the fence.

The breeze blew just enough to keep the flies at bay, the sounds of horses calling to one another from paddocks all around the farm filled the air, and there was a good deal of laughter between the volunteer painters. It was a spectacular spring day in South Windham, one that was the perfect setting for bringing together committed, public service minded local people with an unmet need of New England’s largest equine rescue and rehabilitation facility. The results included new friends and neighbors leaning more about one another and the animals who share our lives and a gleaming white fence marking greener pastures for horses who deserve them.

For more information, see www.MSSPA.org.