Carousel Ranch held an open house on Saturday to showcase the annual Carousel Wishes & Valentine Kisses campaign run by the ranch to raise funds for equestrian therapy for developmentally challenged children.

Attendees of the open house had the opportunity to see riding demonstrations and tour new facilities that are being constructed to help older students of the ranch find employment training.

“This is an important month for us,” said Executive Director Denise Tomey-Redmond. “We are in a quest to raise money to supplement what we can can raise with events. It all goes towards therapy for the kids.”

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Funds raised by donations will be matched up to $25,000 by Carousel Ranch board member, Wayne Crawford. With the donation matching, the Carousel Ranch staff hope to raise between $50,000 and $75,000 for the organization.

As well as the annual donation drive in the month of February, Carousel Ranch has recently received a grant from Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

“The Antonovich grant is for the materials,” said Tomey-Redmond. “It doesn’t cover the operational cost of the program. But it gives us everything we need as far as supplies.”

A majority of the grant is being used for a new training program for older students of the ranch, called “Ready to Work.”

“That program has been a response to the fact that we’ve been in business for 19 years,” said  Tomey-Redmond, “and many of our kids are now young adults.”

The new training program will teach the students skills that they can apply to their lives outside of the ranch.

“We want our kids to be the best they can be. We want them to be productive members of the community,” said Tomey-Redmond. “Some of our kids aren’t ready for that yet, and their parents are looking for a safe place to train them in those skills.”

Patrick Coskran, the vocational instructor for the upcoming program, believes that it may not be possible to some students of the ranch to learn the skills needed on the fly.

“It takes more repetition for some kids. You may learn something after two or three repetitions,” he said, “but somebody with various developmental delays may take 10 or 20 repetitions.”

However, he said, these students can become productive employees in a company if they are given the training they need.

“Our students are coming with extra challenges,” he said. “The hope is that we can build these soft skills, and once an employer recognizes their spirit and energy, i think they’re going to be great employees.”