Donine floats a plan for horses

Pearces Creek women Donine Linder (centre left) presented a horse float, which had been refurbished thanks to several local businesses, to Joanne Schoenwald from Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue.

AFTER the devastating Queensland floods, Pearces Creek woman Donine Linder decided she wanted to do something to help.

And so, being a horse-lover, she decided to donate one of her horse floats to Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue, a charity which saves horses, rehabilitates them and finds them new homes.

But first Ms Linder needed some help in getting the float fixed up.

“It needed a bit of TLC,” she said.

“I started ringing around to see if local businesses would get behind my idea of donating their services to help me get the float looking good again.

“I was pleasantly surprised at the willingness of the business community to donate time and services.

“Here we are, six weeks later, with a beautiful horse float, completely made over and we were all very proud and excited to be able to present it to Joanne (Schoenwald, of Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue).”

Ms Schoenwald, the organisation’s founder and president, travelled to Alstonville on Saturday to collect the horse float.

She said she was “very, very happy” with the float and thanked Ms Linder and everyone who had made the project a reality.

“A lot of the horses we rescue are death-row horses,” she said.

“We also deal with surrendered horses, but the problem is that we just can’t beat the numbers game. We can’t save them all.

“During the floods we saw horses which had leg injuries from being caught in fences, and a lot of feed was lost.

“It’s just so amazing when someone like Donine calls you up, out of the blue, with an offer to help.”

Businesses which helped with the project included: Summit Signs, Ballina Fibreglass Supplies, Lismore House Spraying, Advanced Auto Refinishers, Lismore Paint Centre, Great Eastland Caravans, Singhs Tyre and Mechanical, B&B Produce, Horseland Lismore and RACQ Insurance.