MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — From a farm in Mechanicsville, Virginia, rescued horses are now helping heal those who have served on the front lines.
Mended Sparrow Inc. looks like your average horse farm from the outside, but it serves a special purpose.
"It's not therapy. However, it's impactful," Shahnaz Deyette, founder and executive director of Mended Sparrow Inc., said.
Since 2022, the nonprofit has offered "equine assisted services" for military members, veterans, teachers and first responders, completely free of charge.
These services include walking, grooming, or riding a horse in group settings, led by coaches rather than clinicians.
"It's not like, okay, we're going to take an intake sheet, we're going to go in and emphasize what you're here for. That's not us. it's not a facility where we diagnose, it's not a feeling we treat some sort of illness. Your past stays with your past. You come here and we meet you where you are," Deyette said.
Deyette's own past inspired her to start Mended Sparrow Inc..
Her military career began with trauma when she was sexually assaulted as a young service member.
"You're 18, and you would never expect, within part of that first couple of years being in the military, you experienced being raped, but the gentleman was found guilty," Deyette said.
She later served in Iraq and was severely injured, with little time to process her experiences.
"The military had sent me off the ship, and this is the part where you really didn't have time to process, because you were only sent off 10 days, and then you had to come back on the ship and continue on with the deployment. And so it just kind of promoted that, hey, put it on the shelf, but keep on going," Deyette said.
After years of service, Deyette, a single mother at the time, eventually left the military.
"It was the hardest decision I could have ever made in my entire life, of knowing how much I invested my life, but I knew that I was not going to have a life if I didn't work on myself," she said.
She pursued education in psychology and began working with horses through the Sempi Fi Fund's Jinx McCain program, experiencing their therapeutic value firsthand.
"It's able to, to reset your nervous system. It's able for you just to have time on, for you that self care, to have to be able to process things you weren't able to process before," she said.
So far, over 100 clients have benefited from the program.
A former client named Rachel, who didn't want to share her last name, told CBS 6 she now volunteers regularly.
"The environment, being here, it's just so relaxing, so peaceful, being with the horses," Rachel said. "You can just be you, you don't have to be anything else. Nobody expects anything from you. You show up how you show up, and the horses show up how they show up and cool things tend to happen."
Deyette said her mission is to create a safe, timeline-free environment for clients and their families so they feel encouraged to return.
"That's our tagline. 'A new direction is never far away.' This is your path, your journey, and we're here to support you in that aspect, and also to know that, knowing you can come back as many times as you want to, to build that relationship, that you're not alone," Deyette said.
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