Georgia Equine Rescue League

Our Volunteer of the Quarter is a GERL Area Coordinator who has helped with several situations involving skinny horse reports in her area and has attended many booth events for GERL over time. She has also fostered a couple of horses for GERL in the past and has horses of her own. She is married to a farrier and is a mother of two grown daughters and three adorable grandbabies. Her name is Debbie Whitworth and what a pleasant surprise to learn recently that Debbie also has excellent organizational and people skills. Those traits are valuable assets! All the while, she is quiet and shy-like. Who knew there was a live wire under that reserved demeanor!
Recently, Debbie went out on a limb and volunteered to put together a multi-county training meeting with law enforcement and animal control officers all over the northeastern part of our state. Orchestrating a “Multi-County” Training Meeting is no small task and it typically takes several people working together to host one. First of all, you have to find a location that is suitable for horses and also offers a meeting room large enough to handle forty or fifty people. Debbie secured a place (an insurance company) that had reservations about the horses at the last minute and she quickly and calmly shifted gears and picked a better place than before. It had an indoor arena with bleachers and even a heater! Since it was cold and windy day you can see why we were so impressed with the location she had secured.
Debbie had to wear her secretary hat and get to work obtaining all of the names and addresses of the county sheriffs and animal control officers that would receive the letter of invitation. There were at least twenty counties that were invited. She had to send out a reminder letter and also follow up with a phone call closer to the date of the meeting. All the while Debbie reported back periodically to let everybody know what was happening. This was the largest Multi-County Meeting that we have put on in 3 years of hosting them.
We offer lunch at all of our training meetings, so Debbie had to put on her Paula Dean hat and come up with a menu. She’s a great cook and decided to go “home-made” with a selection of soups, chili, sandwiches, salads, brownies and cookies. She and a few volunteers served up a delicious lunch for everybody. Did I mention that she also had coffee and doughnuts (there were cops in the room) and a few other yummy breakfast foods to start out the meeting? She thought of everything.
Debbie works and has a family, but what a gem she was to volunteer to pull off such a huge undertaking. I felt very spoiled just showing up and doing the presentation. Kudos to Debbie and her professionalism and dedication to GERL. It’s people like Debbie who make GERL look good!

This time, our featured volunteer is a lovely, smart, energetic lady who should have “NATURAL BORN VOLUNTEER” tattooed on her forehead! Any time there is something going on where help is needed, all we have to do is turn around and there is Linda Kundell. No matter how far she has to drive or how long she will be there, Linda makes herself available.
When asked to write for our newsletter about G.E.R.L. events she has attended, Linda never refuses and always manages to intertwine some of her ever present, tongue in cheek, humor into her colorful accounts. I first became aware of Linda as an officer and volunteer for CTHA (Chattahoochee Trail Horse Association). Linda was always in attendance when we gathered up at Jake Mountain in Dahlonega to clean trails. Then, I learned that Linda was also an officer and volunteer with the Kelmac Saddle Club on one of the first occasions that organization presented G.E.R.L. with a very nice check at their end–of-year banquet. She seemed very interested in our mission and before we knew it, she had become a member and enthusiastically set out to make herself a very valuable member of our team of “helper bees”. G.E.R.L.’s gain did not take away one minute of the time she continued to give to C.T.H.A. and Kelmac and their various activities throughout the year. A devoted wife and grandmother, Linda often finds time to enjoy riding her own horse, but it is her deep love of all horses that inspires her to do everything in her power to promote family activities involving them and to work very hard to help G.E.R.L. raise money to care for many equine which fall into unfortunate circumstances. Thank you for what you do, Linda Kundell!

Sometimes our special volunteers come as a pair and cannot be separated. Never has that been truer than this time. They are a long time married couple who are fortunate enough to share, not only a strong love for each other but a deep love of horses. They are George and Janice Lilley and they live in Houston County.Even though Janice has been very ill over the last couple of years and has been in and out of the hospital, with George ever at her side, it seems that every time we turn around, we learn that one or both of them have attended some event on behalf of GERL. An article written by Janice can be found in the last GERL Newsletter which describes their participation in a book fair sponsored by Books a Million in Warner Robins to benefit
GERL. Not only did they spend the day representing GERL but they brought “Goldie” to add interest. Goldie is the most beautiful little Haflinger gelding anyone has ever seen. He is just as gentle as he is beautiful and has come to be lovingly known as the GERL Middle Georgia “spokes horse”. When Goldie is around, he is usually standing quietly while many
young hands are eagerly touching his legs and body as the children marvel at being in his presence. Weather permitting, Goldie and George offer rides in their lovely cart, pulled by Goldie. George knows that these rides will be the memory of a lifetime for some of these young and hopefully future members, of GERL. When we were approached by Eddy O’Hern about putting on a spring ride at Mingo Trails Riding Club last April, it was George and Janice who stepped up and volunteered to help make all of the arrangements and organize the event. It was hugely successful and we hope that it will become an annual event. Just last summer, George was ordained as a minister of the gospel. He immediately offered his services as GERL Chaplain. We had never even dreamed of having an official chaplain but soon realized that this could be a very important role and we knew of no one who could fill it with more enthusiasm or humility that George Lilley. We are thrilled to have George as our chaplain! We want George, Janice, and Goldie to know how much we appreciate their outstanding and frequent representation of this 100% volunteer organization. It takes each and every one of us to make it all work. George and Janice Lilley are certainly doing their part!

It has been a long standing policy that members of the GERL Board of Directors are considered to be in-eligible for the honor of being chosen as our Volunteer of the Month or Quarter. Where in the world did THAT come from!? Our Board is composed of some of the most dedicated, hard working, and outstanding members of the entire organization. We are very pleased to “kick that policy to the curb” for this quar-ter. Our Volunteer of the Quarter is Eddy O’Hern, who also just happens to be our GERL Vice President and a very valuable member of the Board of Directors.
Eddy is many things. He is a retired military man (thank you for your service to our country, Eddy!), a great husband, father, and grandfather, an outstanding horseman and horse trainer, and a fine American. For all of the years that he served in the military, Eddy held in his heart, his love of horses and working with them. One of the first things he did when that long awaited day of retirement came was to let GERL know that he was ready to become more involved.
Knowing this, was an answer to our prayers because GERL desperately needed an active presence in mid-dle Georgia and he lives in Bonaire, GA, which is about as middle Georgia as you can get. Eddy was already a member of GERL and had proven that he had a deep interest in helping horses in any way possi-ble. When asked if he would consider filling the Vice President’s role in our organization, Eddy never hesi-tated and he went to work that day. Over the months that he has been in that role, we have come to value his wisdom and appreciate his problem solving abili-ties very much.
One of the first things he did was to organize and put on a GERL weekend fund raiser trail ride at Mingo Trails in Toomsboro, GA. It was a huge success and Eddy is already planning a repeat event this spring. Please watch for an announcement in our newsletter and plan to join us.
Thank you so much, Eddy, for all of those hot and humid days, as well as the cold and windy ones that you trudged to the barn and round pen to insure that Payday’s training was uninterrupted. Thank you also for being a part of the GERL Board and giving so freely of your time and wise counsel. Check out Eddy O’Hern Horsemanship on Facebook and his article about Payday in this newsletter.