About Us
Scooter’s Place, is an Adaptive Horseback Riding Program for Children and Adults with Disabilities where Horses are Helping People. Shining as a local organization that started in Woodinville,WA is currently located in Monroe, WA serving children and adults with the following needs:
- Autism
- Developmental delay or disability
- ADD/ADHD
- Learning disability
- Cerebral Palsy
- Aproxia
- Down syndrome
- Anxiety/Depression/Trauma
- Head trauma/brain injury
- Hearing impairment
- Visual impairment
- Genetic conditions/disorders
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Intellectual disability
- Youth identified as “at-risk”
- Stroke
- PTSD
- Muscular Dystrophy
- Spina Bifida
- Paralysis
- Spinal cord injury
- Amputation
- Orthopedic disorder
We build on the magical connection between horse and human in a safe, structured environment to teach life skills and build self-confidence. Unlike other therapeutic type riding programs, Scooter’s Place encourages children with special needs to ride side by side with their siblings, friends, or parents. Few adaptive programs in our region offer this “mainstream” approach. We place particular focus on serving children on the autism spectrum. Best of all, we have no waiting list!
Our History
After relocating to the Pacific Northwest from Silicon Valley, Carrie Mizenko founded Scooter’s Place in 2014 along with her husband, Matthew Mizenko, fulfilling a lifelong dream of having her own equestrian program where she could focus on children who just need a little more patience and understanding. She understands these children well—as her son,now age 5, is on the autism spectrum.
You may be wondering about how we came up with the name Scooter’s Place! Scooter was Carrie’s childhood horse and serves as both our namesake and the inspiration behind our programs, a rescued, off-track Thoroughbred, Scooter.
In the fall of 2016 Carrie, due to illness, made the difficult decision to pull back from running Scooter’s Place. Carrie had been working with Jeanine Judkins on relocating Scooter’s Place to a facility where they could provide year round services, it was with the utmost confidence in her that she turned over the reins to Jeanine and continues on the Board of Directors of Scooter’s Place.
Jeanine Judkins came to Scooter’s Place with 15 years of experience in teaching with horses and working with adults and children with anxiety, depression and learning disabilities. With her horsemanship program she began getting referrals from therapists and worked with at risk youth and adults at critical times of their lives filling a need in the community. She continues to teach, bringing her years of experience working with horses and people, and has grown Scooter’s Place to where it is today serving the riders and their families of the program.
Scooter’s Place has grown from serving just 5 children that first summer program in 2015 to 35 children enrolled in our summer 2017 session. We look forward to many years of being able to help the people in our community.
Our Facility
With a covered lit arena we offer lesson times into the early evenings throughout the year. The outdoor arena allows us to have two lessons scheduled at the same time and open our enrollment up to additional families that have been waiting to come in during the summer sessions.
