Current conditions unavailable
On a cool, overcast early September morning on her 37-acre farm in an unincorporated area west of Winlock, Marla McNary Pfaff heard multiple testimonies from a first-time visitor and a volunteer that gave her certainty that her childhood dream had come to fruition.
“The horses are my family,” Nadia Townsend, a 24-year-old visitor, said after her first trip to Madison Grove Farm. She also remarked at how talkative and happy she was on the farm, even around strangers — a leap out of her comfort zone.
“It’s a place for me to stop, be still, breathe and forget about everything else,” added Renee Cannon, who uses equine therapy to help with her posttraumatic stress disorder and has volunteered at the farm for a year.
One visitor told the story of how another farm tourist with down syndrome who is non-verbal shocked everyone when she greeted every horse she encountered with “Hello” and “Hi.”
Those heartfelt declarations make the mission worth it for McNary Pfaff.
She founded Madison Grove Farm in 2008 on a small farm in Fall City before relocating to Lewis County in 2019. The staff is made up of volunteers, and services are free of charge and in part funded by community support through donations and fundraisers. McNary Pfaff’s mission is to create a safe and compassionate farm environment to benefit disadvantaged youth, support families and rehabilitate horses through hands-on experience. She believes horses and humans can help each other through unconditional love, unwavering trust and an understanding of each other’s stories.
Madison Grove Farm has 29 animals, including horses, donkeys and mules. One program pairs one child, one horse and one leader for each 90-minute session, which consists of taking care of and working/riding a horse while also helping with a farm chore. If a child is not experienced with horseback riding, staff will not hurry the process of getting a child up onto a horse simply because they want to ride.
The farm also welcomes group visits and partnerships with local groups. It promotes inclusivity, not just in attracting visitors and volunteers of all ages and abilities but in bringing in animals of all ages and backgrounds. Some horses are elderly or rescued from emaciation, while others come from successful racing or performance backgrounds.
No matter the heartbeat, McNary Pfaff wants to provide peace and healing.
“Around here, it’s horses first, humans first, but equal,” she said. “I believe in community. We’re all here working together. We’re all equal. We all have our strengths.”
McNary Pfaff grew up in a grove of trees on Mercer Island and first started spending time around horses at the age of 11. But one tragic experience defined her life’s mission. In 1984, her only sister Linda was murdered by her husband when McNary Pfaff was a teenager. A horse named Jake helped her through the grieving and healing process, and she vowed to find a way to heal others through time with horses.
“The whole reason I do this is because little Marla didn’t have a place to heal back then. It was a horse that helped me heal,” McNary Pfaff said. “This is a lifelong dream since I was like 15, since that horse healed me. I had a family that loved me, but when my sister passed away, there was no one to console me. Little 15-year-old Marla was kind of lost. I turned to literally the neck and heart of my horse and spent time with him.”
“I knew from that time that I would someday have a place where humans and horses could heal together and nobody would care how much money you made. Nobody would care what you looked like. Nobody would care what you believed in. You were all there to help the horses, and they would help you heal together,” she continued.
McNary Pfaff earned a degree in psychology from the University of Washington and retired from her corporate career in 2015 to volunteer on the farm full time. Before retiring, she used to run to her farm after work at the Starbucks corporate office to see clients in the evening.
McNary Pfaff said Madison Grove Farm, which is named after her daughter, has an active 10 volunteers but a total roster of about 50 volunteers. Cannon is one volunteer who previously took lessons and equine therapy but felt she wanted more, thus she received a referral to Madison Grove Farm. McNary Pfaff paired her with a horse named Violet, but Cannon wasn’t certain about the choice at first. When she first started equine therapy, two horses acted aggressively toward her and caused her to have a panic attack, resulting in some hesitation to be intimate around horses. But Violet has been the perfect match, she explained.
“I thought, ‘Am I really the right person for her?’ Because I’ve got hyper vigilance and I startle easily and all of these things which are similar to what Violet was going through,” Cannon said. “Instead of feeding off of each other, we help each other heal all of those areas. She looks out for me, and I look out for her. We’re both learning to let our guards down and trust.”
McNary Pfaff and her volunteer base are looking for more volunteers and donations to keep their services available for free. Madison Grove Farm, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, has a Patreon where supporters can help donate every month and also accepts cash, checks, PayPal, corporate matches, and more.
“I need to fundraise. I need help with the community. We need a covered arena, I need a round pen cover, and I need an ability to help kids and humans all year round in the rain,” McNary Pfaff said. “That is how I’d love to expand here. I totally feel the support, but I get nervous. The bank of Marla doesn’t last forever. These animals cost a lot of money.”
McNary Pfaff said hearing stories like that of Townsend and Cannon are living proof of the power of horses and how they can heal people, and vice versa.
“It makes me realize we’re all the same, yet different. Community is what keeps me going,” she said.
To learn more about Madison Grove Farm, visit its website at https://www.madisongrovefarm.com/.
