Aiken Volunteer Mounted Unit

06/21/2026

06/21/2026

On Saturday June 20th we had a training and certification day. Congratulations to Jeff Perkins and Keltic for achieving their certification. The first hour (no photos) we worked on drill riding. Then as part of our training Price Story, Laurie Neely and Arlene Morris brought their driving ponies to give the AVMU horses exposure to a new distraction. As you can see a good time was had by all. The AVMU horses were good hosts. Also today was Corby Golias and Lilly, Mark Dell'Aquila and Wellie, first training for John Webster on Boomer, trainer Tammy Hanson, Judy Gast, Renee Ford, Julie Doherty and Carol McElwee.

06/16/2026

🚒The Aiken Department of Public Safety was awarded the 2025 Fire Safe South Carolina Community Designation during the Fire-Rescue South Carolina Training Conference last week in Myrtle Beach, SC for developing and implementing community risk reduction strategies during the 2025 calendar year. This is the sixth consecutive year that the Aiken Department of Public Safety has received this designation. 🧑‍🚒

In order to receive this award, fire departments must have educated department members in community risk reduction by taking multiple training classes in this area, identified the top three residential calls for service within their jurisdiction and implemented a strategy to reduce fires in those areas, transitioned from the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) to the new federal National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS), utilized the power of partnerships to reduce risk in the community, and promoted fire and life safety and education through presentations to schools and community groups throughout the year.

06/16/2026

We look forward go seeing you at this fun event! The AVMU horses with be there from around 4-6 pm.

This event is shaping up to be a great hometown America 250 celebration at the barn. Great music, great food, and great company! City Billiards and Classic Cone will be serving us. Carolina Bluegrass Style will be entertaining us from 6-9. We’ve got ponies and horses and vendors and watermelon spitting and celebrity dunking (our Mayor and Sheriff are signup so far…) and lots more. Put June 27 on your calendars!

Vendor inquires email [email protected].

06/13/2026

Come see us from 4-6pm

This is a new and exciting market opportunity that is turning out to be a really fun celebration as more details are decided! Saturday June 27 from 4-9pm.

Rumor has it that we've got the Sheriff and the Mayor lined up to take a turn in the dunk tank. Carolina Bluegrass Style is a lively traditional bluegrass band. Hamburger and Hot dogs. Kids Zone. Watermelon Spitting Contests. Ice Cream and more are being planned.

It's going to be a great community celebration of America! Email [email protected] for more information.

06/13/2026

Today was the mounted units second Friday with Aiken City Parks and recreation summer camp. It was hot hot hot 🥵 but the horses and children did great. Today we talked about colors of horses and the activity was using horse head stencils and coloring the horse.
From the five year old who read my AVMU patch to let everyone know who we are (how many five year olds could read “volunteer”!!) to the hugs from our returning campers and the correct answers from what we taught last week or even last year, it was an amazing morning!! Today we had Kathy and Honey, Tammy and Lilly and Donna and Cirilo our ground crew were John, Judy, Rhonda and Betty. John and Kathy did a wonderful job organizing and doing the stencil activity. We have been doing these camp for a few years now. It warms my heart to hear the kids talk about Fiona from two years ago and Tater from last year etc, that is certainly a sign saying we are right where we are supposed to be, every Friday for six weeks. Please enjoy the photos. Video in the comments

06/08/2026

Come and join us for some good old fashioned fun!!

This is a new and exciting market opportunity that is turning out to be a really fun celebration as more details are decided! Saturday June 27 from 4-9pm.

Rumor has it that we've got the Sheriff and the Mayor lined up to take a turn in the dunk tank. Carolina Bluegrass Style is a lively traditional bluegrass band. Hamburger and Hot dogs. Kids Zone. Watermelon Spitting Contests. Ice Cream and more are being planned.

It's going to be a great community celebration of America! Email [email protected] for more information.

06/06/2026

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending this years first City of Aiken Parks and Rec summer camp. We have been coming here every camp Friday for about five years and we absolutely love being here. We so enjoy watching the children learn and gain a love for horses. It’s amazing that even the young seven and eight year olds could answer questions correctly from what they learnt last year! We talked about safety and parts of the horse, each camper got an outline of a horse that they applied the appropriate sticker to the appropriate part! Mini Lilly even got to educate about high insulin in horses and why she can’t eat grass (hence the grazing muzzle). The children remembered from last year that I referred to grass as candy for horses! We also raffled off some ADPS coloring books featuring AVMU on the last page! Each week we will do a coloring book raffle. Attending were Mark and Boomer with ground crew John, Tammy and Lilly with ground crew Lark, Donna and Cirilo with ground crew Renee and Cindy and Oliver with ground crew Carol M. The children even got to talk to a real Police officer, Patrol Massey. We will return next week to talk about colors and breeds of horses. Please enjoy the photos.

05/18/2026

Congratulations to all. It was an honor to attend the Awards Dinner.