PrintOn the final day of any horse show, the scene is sadly familiar: As the tack room drapes come down and the last horses are loaded onto vans, colorful tangles of unwanted show ribbons are tossed in the aisles or thrown in trash bins.
Maybe you’ve thought to yourself: “Too bad there’s not some kind of second life for these pretty tokens of achievement.” Sue Copeland had that same thought, but she went a step further and turned contemplation into action—launching a project called Ribbon Recycling, a one-woman endeavor to put discarded and used ribbons into the hands of elated equestrians at therapeutic riding centers.
Copeland, who lives in Richmond, Texas, recalled the event that inspired her to start her program: It was the 2009 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival (Wellington, Fla.), where she had traveled with her trainers Peter Pletcher and Danny Arendt. Copeland was particularly shocked to see so many discarded ribbons in the stabling areas.
“A lot of people would kill to get any color of ribbon at WEF,” said Copeland, who shows in the adult amateur hunter division. “So to see all those ribbons lying in the dirt was kind of a surprise.”
This prompted Copeland to start thinking seriously about possible uses for unwanted ribbons, and it didn’t take long for an idea to take shape. For years, Copeland had been donating used horse equipment, tack, books and magazines to Houston-area therapeutic riding centers. She knew that those centers would likely welcome donations of used show ribbons to hand out at competitions or award ceremonies. After calling around, she discovered she was right.
Copeland, a longtime contributing editor at Horse & Rider magazine, realized that the therapeutic riding centers in her area probably weren’t the only ones that would appreciate receiving donated ribbons. But online research didn’t reveal the existence of any ribbon-donation programs for therapeutic riding centers anywhere.
Spreading The Word
So in May 2009, Copeland used her monthly column to float the idea to the magazine’s 160,000 readers and got an enthusiastic response. Many people, she learned, would be willing to collect unwanted ribbons at local horse shows and either donate them to therapeutic riding centers in their respective communities or send them to Copeland for distribution.
Energized by the response, Copeland spent the next several months trying to figure out a way to coordinate a large-scale ribbon recycling effort that would encompass the magazine and various national sponsors, as well as herself. Meanwhile, “I put the people who were willing to collect and ship me ribbons on hold because I didn’t have a place to send them,” said Copeland.
But it turned out there were too many obstacles for a multi-faction effort—lack of manpower and space, ill timing and the struggling economy, among other things—so Copeland decided to strike out on her own. In May 2010, she wrote another Horse & Rider column outlining the idea and sent an email to numerous additional people and organizations that she knew might be interested in contributing ribbons to the project. Again, the feedback was significant and positive.
