Meet Erin Chimberoff: Founder of Hand, Hoof and Heart

We had the good fortune of connecting with Erin Chimberoff and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Erin, how does your business help the community?
My business, Hand, Hoof and Heart, was designed to not only provide services to the community, but to also provide opportunities to bring our surrounding community together. HHH started started off as a program that solely focused on providing the special needs community with recreational, therapeutic equine facilitated activities, but has now grown into so much more. While we still provide our therapeutic horseback riding program for the special needs community, our program now also has a focus on providing a “typical” horseback riding program for children, teens and adults that are struggling with anxiety, depression and low self esteem. With both of these programs running out of our facility, we have been able to promote the importance of inclusivity on the farm by encouraging our students that do not have special needs to volunteer with our therapeutic lessons and camps. Hand, Hoof and Heart has also developed a volunteer program that is open to anyone in the community age 14 and older. Our volunteer program offers many opportunities for the community to get involved by assisting during therapeutic lessons, being a summer camp counselor, working directly with our program horses by providing daily care or by assisting with general facility maintenance and chores. We are also able to provide onsite learning from many of our Kennesaw State University volunteers studying early childhood education. Our volunteer program also works as a mentorship program as many of our younger volunteers are exploring future career ideas. We are able to provide the training our volunteers need in order to appropriately interact with our students with special needs and give our volunteers the tools they need to successfully encourage and assist our students during their time at the farm. We pride ourselves in being able to educate our volunteers in safely handling, working with and caring for our horses. Volunteers that have no prior experience with horses are now able to assist our students during their lessons without the help of the instructor including retrieving horses from the pastures, grooming, tacking and handling them from the ground. Volunteers are also given extensive training on these matters so they can safely teach these skills to our riders under the supervision of our instructors. Just recently, I had a long talk with one of our veteran summer camp counselors, a senior at Walton High School. She began volunteering as a counselor with our camps in 2017. She explained how nervous she was to volunteer as she didn’t know anyone else working as a counselor the first year she joined us. She had no experience working with children with special needs or working with horses. She stated that volunteering with our camps was one of the best decisions she ever made. She told me how she has built lasting friendships with the other counselors that she met that year at camp and now these friends are some of the best she’s ever had, all of whom return to be a counselor at camp each summer. She also told me that because of the Hand, Hoof and Heart camps, she has a dream to become a licensed hair stylist and plans to offer in home hair appointments specifically to clients with special needs. This volunteer has returned to camp every summer since we met her and become one of our most advanced counselors that now has experience working with campers that are severely autistic and nonverbal.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
What makes me the most proud is that Hand, Hoof and Heart has turned into so much more than a horseback riding program. What you get at HHH is not what you would get at any other equestrian facility. We are so much more than just learning how to ride a horse. We have created a family and a community. Everyone involved in our program supports each other at the barn and outside the barn. Our program facilitates friendships between our lesson families and our volunteers. We provide a place of comfort for our students and a place of peace for their parents to enjoy. We are able to provide a place where our students can learn new skills, accomplish goals of independence, socialize, as well as build strength and confidence. We provide opportunities for people to learn about themselves, learn about others and receive support in all areas of their lives. What we are most excited about is to finally get our 501c3 status, starting building a permanent home for HHH and continue to grow by providing more programs for the community that focus on life skills, job skills and mentorship. The journey of Hand, Hoof and Heart was and is difficult. In the beginning, we started off very small with only two horses and five students. I worked with different lesson programs to grow my equestrian skills, as well as worked three other jobs providing caregiving, job coaching, and independent living during the early years of development We have hit many bumps in the road to get to where we are now and overcoming some of those bumps have been the hardest lessons I have learned in life. The biggest lesson that I have learned through all of this is that each obstacle I tackle will beat me down, but it will always make me stronger once I get through it. If you believe in your dream, you do whatever it takes to keep moving forward. It is ok to feel defeated and it is ok to be sad, but what you cannot do is let those times of feeling broken keep you from working towards your dream. One of the best things I have done for myself and for this program is surround myself with people that believe in me, support me, challenge me and motivate me. The most important part of this dream is family and community; that is exactly what Hand, Hoof and Heart exudes. What I want the world to know about our story is that we built Hand, Hoof and Heart for others. We built this program to encourage community, inclusivity, friendships, education, creativity, a love for animals and nature, a love for others and most importantly love for yourself. Whatever your journey may be, our goal is to be here for you and support you in any way that we can. Our team is dedicated to providing a space that brings love, acceptance, and guidance to anyone that is involved with our program.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Many of my favorite places to eat are in East Cobb as that is where I grew up. We would eat at La Carreta for the best mexican food you can find or Ajs Seafood and Poboys for a quick, affordable cajun style meal. One of my most favorite adventure spots is the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Grove Mountain where you can drive through an enormous area filled with so many different species of animals that are living happily together in a natural environment. Another adventure spot would be Helen, GA which has an eclectic town to explore, lazy river rafting and open patio bars to enjoy. To hang out and relax, we would spend time on the farm that is home to Hand, Hoof and Heart and just down the road from lake acworth where we can explore on kayaks or lay out on the beach.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many people and organizations that have been a part of Hand, Hoof and Heart’s journey. Without them, this program wouldn’t be where it is today and wouldn’t be able to keep growing. My parents, Donna Maslia and Michael Chimberoff, have been by my side every step of the way. My dad encouraged my love for horses and I always tell everyone “This is my dad’s fault” since he allowed me to own my first horse at 14 years old. My mom is always there to bounce ideas off of, motivate me to keep going when bumps in the road arise and help me to grow my “business brain”. To be honest, my entire family including my siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins are one of the main reasons why the HHH program is what it is today. I am always one to say “If I didn’t have the family I did, none of this would even exist”. One of my other biggest supporters has been The MDE School of East Cobb and their director Mindy Elkan. MDE is a nonprofit school for children, teens and young adults with special needs. MDE gave me the opportunity to start an equestrian club for their students before Hand, Hoof and Heart even existed. When I began offering therapeutic horseback riding, our first riders were MDE students. HHH was lucky enough to provide our equestrian club for these amazing kids until we moved to a new facility at the end of 2018. Even though I am no longer providing the equestrian club, I am still heavily involved with the school. I was given the opportunity to sit on the board for the first two years of their nonprofit journey. I am also still involved in their clubs, but am now providing a pottery club for their students which happens once a month throughout the school year. The director, Mindy, has been one of my biggest supporters from the beginning and I will always be grateful for the opportunities she gave me at such a young age. Before Hand, Hoof and Heart really took off, I worked privately with families and their children with special needs at their homes. I was just starting to learn about my love for working with the special needs community and without much experience in the beginning of my journey, these families trusted me with their children and those experiences taught me more than I could ever imagine. Each of these families taught me something unique and the education I received from them helped in the development of Hand, Hoof and Heart. From working as a caregiver, helping with therapy goals and homework, assisting with independent living skills in the community and in the home, developing a plan to become more independent at their place of work, to just being a friend. All of the families, children, teens and adults I have had the honor to work with have played a huge role in my career and in the development of HHH. I also want to give a shoutout to the HHH staff. I have been so incredibly lucky to have built a team around me that is creative, supportive and passionate. The Hand, Hoof and Heart team is so much more than staff; they are my friends, my cheerleaders, my family and I couldn’t be more thankful that they chose to be part of this journey.