WAKE COUNTY -- Sometimes on this journey called life, we need someone to walk beside us, someone to keep us on the straight and narrow.

• CORRAL Riding Academy pairs rescue horses with girls in high-risk situations to provide healing
• Christina Lashley was part of the program for six years. She learned discipline through riding, which helped her in school and in life
• It was Joy Currey's 'Teach for America' experience that inspired her to start the organization

"I wasn't doing really good in school at all," said CORRAL Riding Academy alumna, Christina Lashley. "My grades were really bad. I wasn't socializing with a lot of people, and it was really difficult for me to make a connection with anyone, even my family."

This is the path Christina Lashley was on, until she met an "Everyday Hero," Joy Currey, the founder and executive director of CORRAL Riding Academy. The non-profit pairs rescue horses with girls in high-risk situations to provide healing. An unsure Christina soon found her sparkle.

"'Okay, Christina, you have this,'" Lashley said. "It was told to me in my face directly. 'You have this, you need to find it for yourself, because you can do things beyond what you could ever imagine.' To have someone tell you that and know that they're not lying to you, they're being so truthful, and they actually believe it in their heart."

Christina was part of the program for six years. She learned discipline through riding, which helped her in school and in life. Now 19, she's in college, majoring in computer engineering with dreams of being a Navy officer. Currey says it's a change she's now accustomed to seeing.

"A girl leaves CORRAL knowing she can, and there is a belief in her that whatever she sets her mind on, she can," Currey said.

It was Currey's 'Teach for America' experience that inspired her to start the organization. She saw first-hand how resilient children could be in bad situations.

"No matter what you've been through or what you've experienced, kids can achieve and achieve at high levels," Currey said. "That's what we believe here at CORRAL, and I think that's really what makes us different. We have such high expectations for our kids, but we also provide tremendous support for them to get there."

They transform girls to women, ready to take on the world.

"Without CORRAL, I don't think I would have been able to do it by myself," Lashley said. "They unlocked a potential that I would have never been able to find on my own."