As Denise Corbo, founder of literacy nonprofit StoryBook Treasures, visited Pioneer Park Elementary on March 4, she overheard a young girl’s greeting to her father. 

“There was a father that was there to pick up his child, and as soon as she went to him, she said, ‘Daddy! Daddy! A horse came to school today. I got to pet a horse!’ ” Corbo recalled. “That was the first thing out of her mouth, so you know that just made such a big impact.”

The girl’s greeting may have had her father scratching his head. Horses aren’t a common sight in Belle Glade, Florida, although it’s just a 45-minute drive from horse-saturated Wellington. So when JustWorld International and StoryBook Treasures collaborated with Pioneer Park Elementary School to bring equestrian volunteers and a horse to school, it would be the first opportunity many students had to see—and even better, to pet—a real horse. 

The interactive day was designed to give students a personal experience with the animal, then leverage that excitement to engage young readers with books about horses. JustWorld invited equestrian ambassadors from the Wellington area to participate in the day’s activities, including Canadian-born dressage rider Ashley Holzer, U.S. dressage rider Jovanna Stepan, American show jumper Francie Steinwedell-Carvin and Guatemalan-born show jumper Juan Andres Rodriguez, and a group of young riders, including Rodriguez’s 19-year-old twin daughters, Ana Cristina and Ana Sofia Rodriguez.  

Juan Andres rode the horse, a gelding named Matrix, in four demonstrations for rotating groups of elementary readers. It was a scene that could have been out of a storybook itself: an Olympic rider skillfully maneuvering a gleaming gray horse around a school field, while 30 to 40 enthralled children watched and asked questions. 

The most pressing question for the first through third graders was, “How fast can the horse go?” Juan Andres responded gamely: “Well, let me find out!”

“I galloped the horse in front of them, and actually the horse was surprised and threw in a little bit of a buck,” Juan Andres said, chuckling. “So that created some action. They were really having fun. They clapped their hands. … It was a really nice moment.” 

Apart from the brief rodeo, Matrix was an overall quiet and ideal candidate for the job of meeting young children. The gelding, owned by Maria Newman, the mother of JustWorld founder Jessica Newman, was exceptionally patient—even as excited students lined up to pat him. 

“It’s always so lovely to see children see horses for the first time and what magic that brings to a lot of them,” Holzer said. “That was really special.

“You could not paint a better horse for the situation—you could not create one,” she added. “I’m talking hundreds of kids, and he just stood there like a rock.”

Holzer, who sat with students to answer questions during Juan Andres’ riding demonstration, could see that the horse made a strong impression on the children, many of whom had never touched a horse. The students lit up with questions about how the rider and horse communicate, and what it meant to “talk” to the horse without words, just aids.

“It’s incredible how it changed the face of the kids,” Juan Andres said. “It’s a real example of how something beautiful and something powerful, and something expressive can create curiosity in the kids.”

Breaking Out Of The Equestrian Bubble

When Juan Andres met fellow rider Jessica Newman at the 2008 Olympics in Hong Kong, they engaged in the tradition of swapping pins. Juan Andres offered Jessica a pin from his home country, Guatemala, and she gave him a JustWorld pin. It was the first he’d heard of her philanthropic organization, which she founded in 2003. 

But their meeting soon led to a collaboration in Guatemala, where they helped to found a school, Los Patojos. That small school has since expanded to two campuses and now includes additional services like nutrition programs, a community medical clinic, and art, music and cultural development programs. JustWorld operates similar programs internationally in Cambodia, Honduras and the U.S., with support and ambassadors from the international equestrian community. 

“We get into these bubbles of horse shows—here in the United States, we get busy with all that,” Juan Andres said. “It’s important to take some time and turn our heads and see where we can help others. I really believe that if you help others, you will be grateful, and in a way it will return to you.”

JustWorld’s collaboration with Pioneer Park Elementary, a Title 1 school, brings volunteer opportunities within reach of the equestrian world in Wellington. JustWorld joined forces with StoryBook Treasures in 2018, the collaboration provides five literacy kits a year to children in pre-K through third grade. The program includes lesson plans for teachers and books that each student can take home to their home library, with reading prompts and questions for parents and caregivers. 

The cornerstone of StoryBook Treasures is the “treasure,” a physical object that connects students to their book. When classes read the classic children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, they take home both a book of their own and a wooden toy caterpillar. Third-graders reading about engineering receive a puzzle connected to their book. The concept isn’t just fun for young readers, who get to add the book to their home library and the item to their toy shelf—it works. 

After the partnership went into effect, Pioneer Park found that, from 2019 to 2022, third-grade reading proficiency increased from 23.9% to 47.9%. In 2022, the school saw 80% of its students making significant gains, and ranked first among Palm Beach County elementary schools for improvement in English language arts.

Corbo is a former teacher who designed StoryBook Treasures’ programming to replicate the success she saw in her own kindergarten classroom. She believes that the effectiveness of the reading program is due, in part, to the way the books and objects create an atmosphere of excitement around reading in every classroom.

“This experience makes them feel like they belong,” Corbo said. “With a book like this and the way that the lesson is developed, it includes everybody and elevates everyone.”

Using a live horse was a first for StoryBook Treasures, and Corbo could see that the experience sparked students’ imaginations when they later dove into their class book, “The Everything Book of Horses and Ponies,” with the JustWorld volunteers. 

Corbo, who knows young children—and their attention spans—was delighted to see students give their wide-eyed attention to Juan Andres and Matrix, and later, sustain that focus within their reading groups. And while the presentation offered all students a creative connection to their reading, she wonders if some students felt a special draw to the horse—something that might spark an unexpected path. 

“You just never know who’s going to be the next Olympian rider, or who’s going to be someone who works with horses in their future, because this seed was planted,” Corbo said.