Dani Dodds, who helped to set up Didi Riders And Drivers, is pictured at Sunday's harvest festival event in Horncastle with Leah Simpson, of the group, and one of its ponies, Joey.Dani Dodds, who helped to set up Didi Riders And Drivers, is pictured at Sunday's harvest festival event in Horncastle with Leah Simpson, of the group, and one of its ponies, Joey.
Dani Dodds, who helped to set up Didi Riders And Drivers, is pictured at Sunday's harvest festival event in Horncastle with Leah Simpson, of the group, and one of its ponies, Joey.

Food, glorious food! Horse and carriage riders hail generosity of Horncastle people

The leader of a fundraising horse and carriage-riding group has hailed the generosity of Horncastle people after another successful event on Sunday.

Didi Riders And Drivers has raised money for all kind of good causes in the past by holding carriage-drives with their horses and ponies through the streets of the town.

This time, as our photo gallery below shows, a harvest festival-themed event asked locals to donate food for the Horncastle Community Larder – and the response, according to Dani Dodds, was “absolutely fantastic”.

"We were overwhelmed by how the community pulled together,” said Dani, who founded the group, which also rescues stranded horses, with Deklan Campbell.

"Everywhere we turned, there were people bringing us food. People from all walks of life, even vicars and parish councillors. The atmosphere was amazing.

"With children meeting and feeding our horses, there was a great community spirit too.

"We took out five teams of horses and managed to fill a 21-foot trailer that had two carts with food donations.”

In the run-up to the event, people could also drop items off at various locations in the area, while businesses and community organisations donated to the cause too.

The group has now handed over all the donations to the community larder, which is an independent food bank that has been giving support to needy families and individuals for more than ten years now. It is based at Horncastle Community Centre on Manor House Street.

Dani said Didi Riders And Drivers has plenty more fundraising projects in the pipeline, including a Christmas calendar. Any local charities that would like to benefit from this should contact the group via its Facebook page.

Depending on the winter weather, there might even be more carriage-drives, involving the horses, for the Poppy Appeal in November and to mark Christmas in December.

"We are looking for people to come forward to give us some new ideas," added Dani.

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