Staff

Debbie Wilson, Coordinator/Head Instructor

In April 2004, Lucky Harvest’s Board of Directors hired Debbie to fill the position of Project Coordinator. As Coordinator, she runs the Therapeutic Riding Center on a daily basis, and reports to the Board.

Debbie was raised in Huntingdon, Québec, on a farm with Quarter horses, and was a competitive rider, in both English and Western, for over ten years. In 1983, she graduated from Vanier College with a diploma in Early Childhood Education. Her early work experience included two years working with children at the Québec Society for Disabled Children in Montreal. She left the QSDC to get married, and return to Huntingdon where her husband operates his own business.
For fifteen years, Debbie was the director of a non-profit child care center located in Huntingdon. Under her direction, the Centre increased its capacity from twenty-five children per day, to eighty children per day, and added a home child care sector with space for fifty children per day. When she took over the Center, it was located in an old house that required constant maintenance. Under her direction, the Center expanded three times, and in 2001 they moved into a new state-of the-art facility.

At Lucky Harvest she is able to combine her love for children and horses with her successes as an administrator. Debbie became a Cantra certified instructor (CTRAI) in June 2007 and now divides her time between the administrative duties and her students.

Amanda Farquhar, Stable Manager/Instructor

Amanda has been working with Lucky Harvest since June 2004, as stable manager. In the winter of 2005 she began training to acquire her instructor’s certification with the Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association and completed her exams in June 2007.  Like Debbie, Amanda divides her time between the barn/horse duties and teaching. Amanda acquired her western instructor’s certification from Equine Canada in 2011.

Amanda is a graduate of the University of Guelph, Kempville Campus, with a diploma in Equine Studies. She has grown up around horses and has been competitively riding Quarter Horses since the age of twelve. Following graduation, Amanda worked as the assistant-manager on a 70-horse Trackener breeding farm in Morrisburg, Ontario. In the spring 2004, Amanda and her husband returned to our community to be closer to their family and to raise their daughters, Hailey and Cassidy.

Brittany Elder, Assistant Stable Manager/ Instructor

Brittany joined the lucky Harvest team at the age of 12 as a young enthusiastic volunteer. Eventually Brittany was hired to do chores on the weekends while in high school. Brittany went on to graduate from the University of Guelph with a degree in agriculture with a specialization in Equine Studies. She now continues to work part time at Lucky Harvest as assistant stable manager, doing chores 3 days a week and teaches part time. Brittany is working on acquiring her therapeutic instructor certification which will be completed in the fall of 2011 and is an Equine Canada Western instructor.