Programs where you can

direct your donations

The Children’s Fund

A donation to The Children’s Fund funds our core operational budget, to ensure that we meet the everyday needs of our children. For children who come to live here, what we consider necessities can seem to them like luxuries. We want them accustomed to these items, including quality clothing, bedding, and food. For us, the necessities are part of providing the best care possible, supporting stability, healing and growth. Designate a gift “Use where most needed” or simply “Children’s Fund”, and your donation will help fill this bucket.

Enrichment Programs

A donation to any one of our Enrichment Programs will help ensure their continuation. Below is a list of seven special programs that have stood the test of time. We know that, for the children of trauma, healing and growth go together. Healing can advance when a child discovers a special gift, and steps over the walls of trauma to take new risks and develop skills. Each child is unique, both as to their traumas and their talents. We often create programs to meet the needs of a single child. Through careful observation, we can notice a spark of interest, and then look for the tools and teachers to help advance emerging gifts.

During 48 years of providing an educational and life-enhancing environment for traumatized children and youth, seven core programs have proven their worth in lifting them to see more in themselves than brokenness, allowing them to discover gifts, take new adventures in learning, develop strengths, and find motivation as they continue to heal and prepare for adult life. These programs include visual and performing arts, chapel and Christian education, horsemanship and animal care, recreation, family life activities, summer programs, plus transitional living and fresh start programs for young adults at our third campus, Enhanced Horizons. In addition to these programs, the Alumni Scholarship Fund provides grants for alumni living out in the world who are enrolled in college or vocational trade schools. All these programs are funded entirely by private donations, with no government revenues involved.

Visual & Performing Arts – Art, music, poetry, and theater are powerful healing tools for traumatized children. An otherwise non-responsive child may be able to paint, write, sing, or dramatize what they cannot otherwise share. Plus, artistic gifts are often enhanced in such children, and their works can be stunningly beautiful.

Horsemanship & Animal Care – Certified staff help children learn to be around horses safely, while also learning to groom, saddle, ride, and show them. Riding for fun is what the children enjoy most. They also learn valuable life lessons like respect, discipline, trust, and work ethic through such interactions, experiencing healing in the process.

Chapel & Christian Education – Our mission to provide a life-enhancing Christian environment starts with weekly chapel. Our children often arrive angry at authority, including God. Each requires a different ‘next step’, so we sing and talk about the love of Christ, and strive to be mutually respectful while waiting for an opening to occur.

Recreation – Recreation is an important part of childhood, and an especially key element in the healing and growth of a traumatized child. Trauma is stored in the body and mind in ways that influence behavior. Recreation provides life-changing experience through exercise, adventure, challenge, and play. It also offers gift-discovery and development.

Summer Programs – The whole gamut of enrichment programs is offered each summer on an elective basis. Residents take classes in life skills, cooking, sewing, arts and crafts, dance, music, drama, painting, vocational education, sports, fishing, horseback riding, and more. They can participate in many programs in rotation.

Family Life – Activities organized by and for households. Each individual house, 18 of them spread across the two children’s campuses in Ingram and Leakey, functions as a family. Cabin activities for each household include off-Ranch outings for meals and entertainment, trips to special destinations, holiday celebrations, Christmas gifts, and birthday parties.

Enhanced Horizons Transitional Living Programs for Young Adults – Residential and educational support for alumni, aged-out foster youth and at-risk young adults, ages 18 - 25, including high school completion (EH Charter School), college enrollment and financial assistance, job skills training, life skills coaching, transitional living housing, career guidance, and help during crises. These programs also include a spacious house and quarters for homeless young mothers and their infants/toddlers.