As 2024 draws to a close, we would be remiss not to recognize the many volunteers who dedicate countless hours of their free time to the success of our sport. There were 72,374 hours logged in the USEA’s Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) this year across the 171 events that utilized the eventingvolunteers.com platform to log volunteer time. This impressive amount of volunteer time was contributed by 4,378 amazing VIP volunteers.
The Volunteer Incentive Program, which was formed in 2015, was created to recognize the USEA’s dedicated volunteers through national and area leaderboards which award year-end awards and prizes. Here are the volunteers that topped the leaderboards across the 2024 season!
The Top-10 volunteers on the national volunteer leaderboard were all VIP medal recipients. The VIP Medal Program has been recognizing volunteers who consistently serve the sport since 2020, and there are now more than 80 volunteers who have been recognized for receiving their Bronze (500+ hours), Silver (1,000+ hours), or Gold (2,000+ hours) medals through the program.
This year’s 2024 USEA Volunteer of the Year, Susan Hart, of Oxford, Pennsylvania, also gained the distinction of being the first USEA VIP Gold Medalist, meaning she has logged over 2,000 hours of service in the Volunteer Incentive Program. In 2024 alone, she clocked 691 volunteer hours. Hart was the runner-up to this prize last year with 663 hours.
This year’s USEA Volunteer of the Year reserve champion is last year’s champion, Jim Moyer (Gig Harbor, Washington) who offered up 489 hours of volunteer time in the 2024 season. Third place went to Beth Diamond (Lincoln University, Pennsylvania) with 393 hours.
Hart boasts the all-time highest recorded number of volunteer hours on the platform with 2,373 hours recorded since 2016. There is one more volunteer who is on the cusp of receiving their gold medal status in 2025—Diane Bird of Aiken, South Carolina, who's sitting just shy of the 2,000-hour mark with 1966 hours logged!
New VIP Medal winners for 2024 are listed as follows:
In total, there have been 58 Bronze Medals, 22 Silver Medals, and one Gold Medal awarded since the program’s creation on Dec. 1, 2016.
Several factors can influence the number of hours each volunteer has, such as the frequency of events in each area, geography and the ease of travel, and how many events are using EventingVolunteers.com. Whether it’s 100 volunteer hours or 10, every top volunteer from each area deserves recognition for their hard work! Below are the current top-3 volunteers from each USEA area.
Area I
1,956 hours - 170 volunteers - 14 events
Area II
26,768 hours - 1,585 volunteers, 47 events
Area III
10,892 hours - 503 volunteers - 49 events
Area IV
1,368 hours - 118 volunteers - 7 events
Area V
1,041 hours - 131 volunteers - 7 events
Area VI
1,897 hours - 174 volunteers - 13 events
Area VII
4,660 hours - 249 volunteers - 11 events
Area VIII
20,853 hours - 1,370 volunteers - 12 events
Area IX
2,026 hours - 154 volunteers - 10 events
Area X
622 hours - 46 volunteers - 5 events
About Mrs. Pastures Cookes for Horses
Founded in 1986 by California horsewoman Patricia Burge, Mrs. Pastures Cookies for Horses began with the goal of creating a wholesome, delicious treat for a greatly beloved, yet very fastidious horse. Over the next three decades, the family-owned company became a tremendous success — known nationwide for their great taste, simple ingredients, and highly recognizable, red-lidded jars.
Thirty-five years later, Alltech proudly acquired the Mrs. Pastures business, with the intent of building upon the success of the company’s original recipe and expanding the product line to meet the ever-evolving needs of the equine industry and horse lovers everywhere.
With an enduring commitment to nourishing the bond between horses and their humans, Mrs. Pastures cookies often serve as everything from a positive reinforcement-based horse training incentive to a simple reward for a job well-done. To learn more or to find a retailer near you, visit mrspastures.com.
Want to stay up to date on the many exciting new product releases and updates from Mrs. Pastures? Click here: https://forms.office.com/r/q59kkxPhhm
About the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program
Volunteers are the lifeblood of our sport, the unsung heroes, and the people who make it possible to keep eventing alive. In efforts to recognize the dedication, commitment, and hard work that volunteers put into eventing, the USEA formed the Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) in 2015. In 2017, an online management portal was designed for volunteers, organizers, and volunteer coordinators at EventingVolunteers.com, which is also available as an app for iOS and Android.
Volunteer incentives include national and area recognition, year-end awards, a top ten USEA Volunteer leaderboard, and a Volunteer of the Year award which is given to the volunteer who accumulates the most volunteer hours on EventingVolunteers.com at recognized events throughout the USEA competition year. Click here to learn more about the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program.
For the first time, the USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP) Symposium has headed west! This year's educational experience will take place in Temecula, California, at Galway Downs starting Tuesday, Jan. 14 through Thursday, Jan. 16 and provide an in-depth dive into the mentality of coaching for coaches for all of its attendees.
It's the start of a new year and what better time to talk about prioritizing yourself and your fitness than at the start of a new season? USEA Podcast Host Nicole Brown sat down with Olympian Boyd Martin and equestrian sports performance fitness coach Tony Sandoval to answer all of your submitted questions regarding your health and fitness so that you can start your year off on the right foot!
This past year was an impressive year of growth for ShowConnect, the innovative event management system for equestrian events. Not only were many updates made by the development team to further enhance the user experience, but many events adopted the platform as their event management system for the year with immense success. Here are a few fun statistics showcasing some highlights of ShowConnect's 2024 season:
Bringing your future eventing prospect with you to a horse trial as a non-compete can be a wonderful educational opportunity for horses not used to the hustle and bustle of the show grounds. However, horses must be registered with the show office as a "non-compete" horse in order to be allowed on grounds. Bringing horses to an event to school, to provide lessons, or to campaign for sale is strictly prohibited.