AT EASE for Disabled Veterans
Paulette Stelpflug (at right): 'It's such a big honor.'
How do you prepare for an once-in-a-lifetime adventure? Liz and Bill O'Donnell, two armed service veterans from Columbus who are marching in Monday's 57th presidential inauguration parade, are bringing a cooler full of cheese.
"For our relatives out east," Liz O'Donnell says.
Wearing uniforms on loan from their American Legion office ('we don't quite fit into our old ones") Liz and Bill, volunteers with the Therapeutic Equine Assisted Self-Confidence Experience, or AT EASE, will be carrying the banner for the Madison-area nonprofit that helps veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder develop self-confidence through riding and caring for horses.
"We know plenty of veterans, Vietnam vets were all around during college," says Liz. She says they were often struggling with "demons," but couldn't talk about it. Volunteering with animals, she says, "is a great way to help deal with PTSD."
Liz and Bill both served in the mid 1970s -- Liz as an army cook in Germany and Bill as a missile technician in Japan -- and jumped at the opportunity to march in Washington.
"He's ready to jump out of his skin [in excitement]," says Liz.
Taking three horses cross country requires quite a bit of preparation, to say nothing of the special horse accommodations required along the way and the security requirements of the Secret Service.
"We're prepared as we can be," says Paulette Stelpflug, founder of the group, who on Thursday was making her final preparations for the road. These included last-second wiring repairs to the horse trailer and gathering extra towels and blankets for Misty, Zippy and Chavez.
Stelpflug, along with the horses, riders, and support staff, left Madison Thursday evening and stopped overnight at a stable in Columbus, Ohio.
The trip was never a sure thing. Stelpflug applied to be in the parade in September and received the acceptance letter from the White House on Dec. 20. She says her group was in the "first wave" of applicants admitted to the parade, and was slated to be one of the first 20 or so groups in the procession.
But with its shoestring budget, the small non-profit, which is run out of a stable in Deerfield, had to figure out how to get to Washington.
"It's such a big honor," Paulette says. "But you're on your own [with fundraising]."
She estimated gas alone would cost $1,500. Tacking on the cost of special horseshoes required by the Secret Service to give the horses more traction in bad weather, and the weekend's inflated hotel rates, the total tab came closer to $2,500.
"We even asked if we could sleep in the stables [to save money], but the Secret Service said it wasn't happening," Stelpflug says.
Determined to take part in the parade and raise the group's profile, she was willing to max out her credit cards to get to D.C. She'll still be "putting it on the pocketbook," but a lot less than originally anticipated, thanks to the flood of donations that poured in the last 10 days.
Stelpflug has received letters of congratulations from U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat, and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican, and an official state flag for the procession from Gov. Scott Walker's office.
Lands' End donated red riding jackets Stelpflug values at $600 and the horses will be wearing navy blue quarter blankets paid for with donations, emblazoned with names of veterans and active military supplied by donors. One of the blankets will have the names of four members of the O'Donnell family -- Liz, Bill, their daughter Clare (an army reserve military intelligence officer studying at UW-Milwaukee) and son Will, an infantryman heading to Afghanistan next month.
"Fundraising was a huge success, we received wonderful cards, notes and donations," Stelpflug says. "To see how it touched people was very beautiful."
