LEBANON--Stirrup Fun Stables in Lebanon is home to 20 rescue horses used for riding lessons and therapy. However, the indoor riding ring is now buried under the weight of the winter.
The owner, Jeanna Prink, and her husband, owners of the this farm for six years, had one primary chore in mind for the coming spring. "I was going to repair and replace all of my fences, but that's not going to be the case," said Prink, with a smile. "We're going to be rebuilding a barn."
The barn where most of the Stirrup Fun Stables instruction takes place collapsed Wednesday morning. Jeanna got a call at work from one of her volunteers.
"We had just been feeding some animals and she had just turned everybody out" into their pastures, said Prink. "Both the animals and she were safe from the structure at the time that it fell."
Stirrup Fun Stables is covered by insurance, but the way in which the barn collapsed was not. "I have been informed that a hoop structure, collapsing due to snow, is the one thing that is not covered," said Prink.
That means to rebuild the barn, it's going to cost roughly $150,000.
A parent of a rider set up set up a gofundme page, which you can find here. "Everybody who can just give a dollar, that's all I ask," Prink pleaded.
One problem the collapse created is that there's only about a five- to seven-day supply of hay remaining. After that, they will need hay donated to be able to keep the horses here.
"Now that the structure is open, the hay that I store in there, which feeds these animals, is subject to the elements of the air and will begin to rot," said Plink.
Thirty families had been utilizing Stirrup Fun Stables prior to the collapse.
"The money that comes from the lessons is what pays to feed the animals and handle their care and to maintain the facility," said Prink. But with no barn, that means far fewer lessons. "Without the facility and without the lessons, I am at a stand still and have no way to feed and care for these animals."