An Equine program in Eastern and Central Illinois is looking to reach veterans in the Western Illinois Area. Tim Dippon is the Veteran Outreach Coordinator at Gateway Family Services and explained to WRMJ’s Terry James why he was in Mercer County.
And welcome back to Focus, I’m Terry James, joined in the studio by Tim Dippon. Now Tim is from a town just north of Danville, Illinois. That’s the home of Dick Van Dyke and Jerry Van Dyke.
He drove three and a half hours to Aledo. Tim, why the heck did you do that? To help veterans. There you go.
What’s the name of the organization you’re with? So I work for Gateway Family Services of Illinois as the Veteran Outreach Coordinator, and if you’re looking for us online, you’d go to Horses Helping Veterans Heal. All right, and your organization is here in Western Illinois. Why? I drove actually across the state today.
I started a stone’s throw from Indiana. Reason being is we were recently awarded some funding from the VA Federal Adaptive Sports Grant, and so we will have 70 slots for veterans across the country to engage in either a two or five day retreat at no cost to the veteran. Their only responsibility is to get themselves there.
So this comes from a government grant. What is provided for the when they go to this retreat? The retreat will consist of lodging. They will be led and guided by a team of mental health professionals and equine professionals to include myself as the veteran peer support.
We have a leadership council that will probably be relevant in the retreats, and so they’ll get to go through it alongside like-minded people that have been through like experiences. What is the benefit of equine therapy, basically working with horses? Well, I’ll try to be brief. I could go on forever about that one, but the beauty of working with horses is that we learn to speak another language in order to understand the horse, and that’s done through social cues and body language.
We’ve learned that humans will say whatever they need to get what they want in the moment, depending on the human. Horses are a bit different. They’re a little bit more genuine in their delivery, and another component of the horse’s ad is that we teach the veterans that if the energy on the outside doesn’t match the energy on the inside, the horses tend to notice that, and they’ll kind of call you out on it.
And so we have to match our true genuine self, who we are inside with who we present as every day. And I know that you’re willing to share your story with those, but just to let people know you did benefit from this program yourself. I was a client in the very early spring slash winter of 2020.
My experience was drawn short because of COVID, but in two weeks what happens on this farm made such an impact in my life. I continue to go back and knock at the door, if you will, until eventually they gave me a job offer as the veteran outreach coordinator. So now I get to do what I love every day.
I don’t even go to Well, we’re so glad to have you here. And we were over talking to Dennis Mellgren at the Veterans Assistance Center in the courthouse, second floor, as I’ll always tell you, at the end of the hall. And you gave him some information about these two- and five-day retreats, which are available to residents of Mercer County and actually residents in Illinois.
So people can go to Dennis and find out more information. Is that right? Absolutely. We try to partner with every willing veteran assistance commissioner across the county.
It was a joy to meet Dennis today. And I thank him for his time. I look forward to doing outreach with the help of Dennis into the Mercer County area.
Because the goal is to get this ripple effect, if you will, to go as far as we can, if not across the country. We want to implement our principles into veterans everywhere so that they can share that with their community and hopefully it spreads. All right.
One more time, the organization that you’re with. I work for Gateway Family Services of Illinois as the veteran outreach coordinator. If that’s too much for you to remember, just go with horses helping veterans heal.
Very good. Thank you so much, Tim Dippon. Contact Dennis Melgren if you’d like more information.
And I’m Terry James. This has been Focus.