Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelli Pharo.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up as the youngest of four children in Pine Hills, Florida. That’s right—I’m a Florida native. Kind of a rare breed in this land of transplants and snowbirds.
My parents, Jim and Faye Davis, raised my siblings and I to know the values of hard work, honesty, self-sacrifice, and honoring God. They demonstrated how to love and serve others. We didn’t have a lot of things and material wealth, but my parents made sure that home was a sanctuary of safety and love.
No matter how loved and safe one may feel as a child, life happens. Inevitably. Difficulties come, you recover, you go through more. We had plenty of the ups and downs over the years. But there were three things that were constant. Three anchors that kept the boat steady when life’s waves tested our hull. God was good, Mom and Dad were there, and horses were an escape.
I was a horse-crazy kid, you might say. I loved horses, talked horses, breathed horses. I knew that someday I’d have a horse. And I knew that horses would be my life. And for a lower-middleclass kid from the suburbs of Pine Hills, Florida, any outsider might say I had pipe dreams. But on my 16th birthday, my dreams came true.
By 16 I had already been through several years of those ups and downs of life. And as the only child still at home, I had watched my parents process the sadness of their children’s struggles, yet I had also observed their centeredness and strength that can only come from faith in a God who walks through the valleys with you. When one day, my mom announced that I had longed for a horse long enough, and that she and my dad had decided it was time I got my first horse.
His name was Rooster. He was a tall, red Quarter Horse with a mane and tail the color of wheat. He was sweet, and patient, and everything my horse-loving heart needed. He was my companion and my escape. If I wasn’t in school, I was at the barn. I worked several jobs to earn his keep at a local boarding facility. I rode him out solo for hours at a time, went on trail rides with the older ladies at the barn on Saturday mornings, and took summer afternoon naps in the hay barn.
Rooster taught me courage, patience, and responsibility. He gave me joy, love, and a respite. Time with him was an investment—of time for him and me. Then came a boy.
For most of my life I was a tall, skinny, average-looking kid. I wasn’t talented at anything in particular—a B student. Average was a good descriptor for young Kelli. Except for my height. At 5 foot 10, I towered about the majority of my friends.
My height, an unfortunate low-self-esteem, and my averageness all added up to a lack of boyfriends as a teenager. So, when at 19 years old a young man finally showed interest in me, I fell for him. And all the sensibility my parents had instilled in me was shaken by finally being wanted for who I was and how I looked.
We were married a year later—I at 20, he at 27. And the nearly 10 years of marriage the followed revealed that in my insecurities, I had allowed myself to marry that I would later describe as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. He was charismatic and amiable in public yet controlling and mean much of the time at home. He hated that I had a horse, which resulted in first leasing Rooster out and ultimately selling him when I got pregnant.
Just weeks into my pregnancy, I lost my baby. And shortly after that my husband announced that he wanted a divorce.
I had no husband, no baby, no home, no horse. At 30 years of age, I moved back in with my parents.
As difficult as it was, I look back and see this as the reboot to my life. It was time to start over.
Immediately I enrolled in college to finish my degree, got a job that supported my academic career, and took a side job working at a local stable.
I was back with horses. I had my grounding.
In the years that followed, I graduated; met and married my current husband, Chris; became a stepmom; adopted two kids; and bought a farm that we filled with horses, goats, chickens and more. It was a dream. And through it all, God was faithful and ever-present.
Along the way, Chris and I discovered our love of fixing up older homes and making them loved again. We did this several times. And several times we bought and sold family horses, all based on what the family needs and demands were at the time.
In 2015, after years of hoping that my ultimate dream would come true and I would have a life’s work that centered around horses, I decided perhaps I would start my own equine-assisted therapeutic riding center. So, I reached out to a local woman who had followed the same dream, successfully, and asked her if I could come for a visit. She agreed, and we met and chatted, but then things took an unexpected, but very welcome, turn.
Timing is everything, they say. Well, as it turned out, the equestrian center I had visited was in need of a Chief of Staff, so that the woman in charge could step back to spend more time with her children and travel with her husband. I was the right person at the right time.
The night before I started that job, I had a dream. I truly believe it was a confirmation from God. In the dream I was standing in a field–a pasture. And as I looked a horse came thundering across the field, past me. Perched on his back was a woman, trick riding. In the dream I said emphatically to God, “I can’t do that! I can’t ride like that!” And in response I heard God say, so clearly, I’ll never forget it, “I did not call you to do that. But I did call you to this field.”
The next day, on my first day at the therapeutic riding center, I found out that there was a trick-rider on staff. I was not called to ride like her, but I had no doubt that I had found my calling and my field.
I was in that job for 6.5 years, moving from Chief of Staff to Chief of Operations. I had a staff of ten incredible women who provided life-changing therapeutic horseback riding and equine-assisted services for individuals with special needs and disabilities, and to Veterans with PTSD. We did incredible work as a team. Our facilities were stunning; our horses were amazing. I was thriving. Then, one morning, life changed. And there was no way to prepare for it or to know what was coming. Once again, another up met by another down. That morning, much of what I knew and relied on this side of heaven fell away from under me.
That morning in mid-July 2022, my CEO walked into my office and released me from my job. No explanation, no reason. Just an end. The earth was beginning to shake.
One month later, my oldest sister, who had been suffering with a rare cancer, passed away. The shaking was increasing.
Then, four months later, three days after Christmas, my dad left this earth. The ground was splitting open.
In March, just three months after loosing my dad, my 25-year-old nephew was killed in a motorcycle accident. There was no ground beneath me any longer. I felt myself slip into the abyss.
In nine months, I had lost my dream job and three members of my family. It was a dark time.
Ten months into being unemployed, I finally got a new job. But it wasn’t in my dream field. There were no horses. I was back to what I was doing right out of college 20+ years prior. But it was a job. And what I didn’t know was that it was all part of the plan. God had created me to be around horses. He had placed me in a family that taught me to give and to serve. I had the natural temperament of a servant leader. I had no doubts who I was or what I was placed here on earth to do. And God was not finished with me and his plans for me.
Two and half years into that new job, April of 2025, we lost my mom. The loss was just as great as each of the prior losses, but my spirit had healed over time. And though the loss was great, it was a single punch. Much more recoverable than the onslaught of 2022/23.
And then, after several years of darkness, the horizon started to lighten. Two months after the loss of my mom, I discovered that I had a coworker who sat on the board of a fairly well-known nonprofit in the equine-assisted services arena. A place very similar to the facility where I had served from 2016-2022. And low and behold, they were looking for a new executive director. And they wanted to interview me. That place was Freedom Ride.
A little girl from Pine Hills, who grew up loving horses, trusting God, and longing for a life where her talents as a born leader and an affinity for working with horses would come to fruition. A little girl turned woman who had walked through hardships and difficulties—wayward siblings, the death of a baby, an abusive husband, a divorce, a lost career, and the death of several family members—was about to get a fresh start…again.
Today, I serve as the executive director of Freedom Ride in Orlando. With a staff of ten and a stable full of amazing horses, we’re serving those with physical, cognitive, and mental health challenges. I’m back to doing the work I’m called to do. I’m back in my field.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, not a smooth road. In childhood, I watched two siblings make life-changing decisions that took them down difficult roads. As a young adult I married an abusive man and lost a baby. As an adult I lost my dream job and several members of my family in a short period of time. And it seemed that each time I found myself back with horses, it seemed to get ripped away again.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Freedom Ride is a 501c3 nonprofit serving those with physical, cognitive, and mental health challenges through therapeutic horseback riding and equine-assisted wellness services. The organization started in 1998 with one horse and one rider. Today we have 11 horses and serve upwards of 100 individuals each semester throughout the year. We moved to a new, right-fit property four years ago, where we have room to expand our herd and our services. We are a PATH International Member Center, with a talented staff of 11 individuals, and a regular crew of about 70 volunteers at the barn weekly. Most of our participants are those with disabilities. As such, we are pleased that we have an electric lift for those in wheelchairs, or those who cannot mount easily for various reasons. In addition, we offer ground-based wellness classes that allow participants to work with the horses in a variety of structured activities. We also provide weekly sessions for groups of veterans from the local VA, and groups of adults and children from a local behavioral facility.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
We have lots of opportunities for volunteers–cleaning stalls, helping feed horses, working with our instructors during sessions as side walkers, and more. We also welcome volunteer groups to come paint fences, help rake leaves, and do a variety of larger projects at the barn.
We are always looking for community partners to support us financially as well. We welcome donations, but we also have opportunities for individuals or companies to sponsor our horses, purchase sponsorship packages to our annual benefit dinner and auction–Jeans and Jewels–which is upcoming in April, or to display their name as lifetime supporters of Freedom Ride through a one-time gift of a stall sponsorship.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.freedomride.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedomrideinc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freedom.ride.inc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/freedom-ride/posts/
