Lindsy loves animals. She was in 4H as a child, has worked with dogs and horses most of her life and has been training her own service animal for over a year. She has volunteered at the Humane Society as a dog walker, and has assisted at the Fresh Steps Equine Assistant Psychotherapy Center in Helena, Montana, which provides mental health services to individuals, children, families and service members with a horse or horses, and she aspires to her own business one day taking care of emotionally damaged horses and helping owners with and problems that they might have with their horses. Animals are Lindsy’s passion—and Lindsy is going to follow that passion to do great things. She has had a tough road, however: She became a mother at sixteen, and she and her son have moved around to a variety of placements within the system, not all of them positive. But one of her teachers, in her senior year of high school, single her out for a Distinguished Achievers Award; Lindsy was picked out of over 200 nominated students to a final 25 students. She was interviewed and appeared on TV as the only single teen mom ever nominated. In her own words, “All kids in foster care want is someone to tell them they matter, that they did a good job today with their chores or to ask them how their day was but also to have someone sit down and actually listen when they have a problem with friends, family, siblings, or they just need to tell how they studied really hard for a test but failed anyway.” Once Lindsy had that experience—of knowing she mattered—she knew she could follow her passion and create a life for herself and her son.
