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Operation Esther arrives...Redwings staff were delighted to welcome the Operation Esther convoy to our Hapton Centre on Saturday.Everyone was excited as we and the weary Operation Esther Crew lead by Julie, Michelle, Jane and Vicky, as well as many others, unloaded the donated goodies from five lorries and trailers. The Operation Esther crew even included some canine friends – Thor the Doberman was in the lead lorry, followed by Blue and young Zara, the five month old Alsatian! Operation Esther was set up after a number of supporters from the Horse & Hound Online Forum were moved so much by the rescue of horses, ponies and donkeys from Amersham on January 9th that they wanted to help the charities involved. Read more about the Amersham rescue here>>>> They set up an independent group called Operation Esther, named after our little two-month old donkey foal who was one of the animals Redwings took in after that difficult day, along with 20 other horses and donkeys. For the past two weeks, horse lovers all over the country have been collecting rugs, feed, bedding and money to share between all the charities involved in the rescue and on Saturday they arrived en masse to deliver our share of these items to us! The donated items will all prove useful and help us keep our running costs low and we cannot put into words how grateful we are. The huge variety of items included bags of feed, rugs, blankets, handy plastic feed skips and items suitable for the Tombola we run each year at our Caldecott Visitor Centre to raise money for our horsey residents, including chocolates and toys!
We understand that the donated items have come from far and wide, many were from adults but some children from a school class even raised money to buy feed to send on the convoy. One member of the Operation Esther team used Saturday’s exercise for the community module of his Baccelaureate – how smart was that! Before they set back off to their own horses, the members of the convoy had the chance to meet little Esther and her family, including new arrival Timothy, before enjoying refreshments and a chat with our staff to prepare them for the journey home. | 
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