When Rachel Soto Vesta started volunteering at Hearts & Horses a year ago, she expected to find a place where she and her children could spend their weekends giving back. What she didn’t expect to find was a second family.
A real estate agent and single mom, Rachel moved to Fort Collins five years ago with her three children, Emma, Joseph, and Olivia. Joseph joined the Changing Leads program in 2020, followed by Olivia a year later. Rachel was interested in signing her family up to volunteer on the ranch, but was unsure if it was feasible “without another adult.” After seeing how much Joseph loved horses, his sidewalker, Dave Erbeck, said that if Joseph ever wanted to volunteer he would go with him.
Because of Dave Erbeck, the whole family got to join the Sunday barn team one year ago. Sunday is now their favorite time of the week, and they have found a whole new community in their fellow volunteers. Now, everyone on the barn team has become “the other adult” for Rachel and her kids.
Rachel says that volunteering at Hearts & Horses has been “life-giving” for her and her family. Her favorite part about barn team is the community, especially getting to work alongside people of all different generations. “I love my kids being around other adults in a productive fashion,” she says, “all working on a job together, all having a responsibility, rules to follow, processes to follow. It’s not adults teaching kids but a collective effort. That’s been so great, because I am the only adult around them a lot of the time.”
Rachel has also noticed that her children’s confidence has grown throughout their time on barn team, and she loves the values that it instills in them: “They get good feedback on how hard they work. Hard work is revered at barn team – the horses need it. It’s not just hard work for the sake of hard work.”
Although working with the herd has now become one of Rachel’s favorite parts of barn team, she wasn’t always comfortable around horses, and learning to navigate that fear has been a big part of her experience. “When I started on barn team I was very scared of the horses,” she says. “I didn’t know where that fear was coming from, but I didn’t want to pass that on to my kids. That was the catalyst for me doing some outside work with horses to learn more about them and understanding how they work and how they resonate with me. When I got to the point where I walked a horse for the first time without feeling scared, that was huge for me. It took about five months.”
Now, Rachel says that “spending time with the horses, thinking about them and the work they do, feels like a very intimate caretaking of a very important animal for a lot of people.” For her, “family and horses is the perfect combination!”
Rachel truly exemplifies the spirit of community, compassion, and commitment that Hearts & Horses is all about. We are so grateful to have her as a member of the Sunday barn team family.
Help us spotlight a volunteer that you think should be recognized for their time, talents, and service to our mission by filling out our Volunteer Spotlight nomination form!
