Building stronger, safer communities one child at a time.

About Us

Mission Statement

Children with high self-esteem and a positive connection with others develop the ability to face life challenges. With self-respect, a child becomes happy, self-sufficient, and respectful of humanity. The Kids’ Ranch connects youth, ages 6-10, with community members, to build self esteem and self-respect through educational and recreational programs.

The dedicated volunteers and staff of the Kids’ Ranch accomplish this mission by giving the children the lifelong gifts of literacy and unconditional caring. A recent government study reported that if a child does not learn to read by the 3rd grade, the chance of literacy is almost non-existent.

Statistics indicate that when illiterate children become adults they are severely at risk of being imprisoned, abusing drugs and alcohol, living in poverty, and being unable to perform basic tasks --- thus preventing them from securing meaningful employment. Stable, safe and strong communities need educated and self-reliant community members. The Kids' Ranch works closely with children, families, caring community volunteers, and school personnel to ensure that every effort is made to enable each child to reach his or her potential. Kids' Ranch kids experience an intense sense of caring and community from the Kids' Ranch staff and volunteers. Some children describe feeling this for the very first time!

Many of the children that come to the Kids’ Ranch have low self-esteem and believe they are stupid because they can not learn to read like the other children. Refusing to allow young children to view failure as a way of life, the Kids’ Ranch connects children with trained caring volunteer tutors that help them learn to read by utilizing a highly effective synthesizing phonics technique. The tutors/mentors work one-on-one with the children twice weekly throughout the school year.

While attending a summer session at the ranch with the focus on literacy, the children also participate in activities on communication skills development, anger management, conservation, anti-smoking, animal care/safety, feelings identification, gardening, computer skills, anti-bullying strategies and therapeutic horseback riding. Reading with "reading buddies", tutoring, nature hikes, art/crafts and kite flying are also a part of the fun-filled learning experience. All these activities aid the volunteers and staff in successfully accomplishing the mission of the Kids' Ranch.

Board members:

Judy Ellington
Gretchen Dresen
Cliff Bobholz
Patti Lindert
Anne Rakos

Executive Director:

Anne Rakos

Educational Coordinator:

Mary Bowers

Description of the Organization

The Kids’ Ranch is an early intervention and prevention program for young children 6-10 years old. Started in Sauk County in 1998 by six community members with more than 150 years of experience working with children, this grassroots organization presently serves children from the Baraboo, Reedsburg, Sauk-Prairie and Wisconsin Dells School Districts. Thanks to the generosity of caring community volunteers and donors the Kids’ Ranch has gone from a pilot summer camp program with 33 children participating in 1999 to a year round program with 150 children participating in 2003. The Kids’ Ranch helps children develop self-respect, respect for others and the environment. This goal is achieved by teaching the values of compassion and non-violence and by offering a highly effective literacy program.

The growth of the Kids' Ranch program has far exceeded all expectations. Funded by scholarships (needed by 4 out 5 children that attend a session or participate in the tutoring program), fundraisers, participant fees, grants, facility rental fees and other donations, the Kids' Ranch has been supported by the community since 1998. On an ongoing basis, the Kids' Ranch organization strives to further develop all of these funding sources.

At its' inception, the Kids' Ranch organization had no way of predicting the devastating cutbacks in school personnel and programs and the economic difficulties most Kids' Ranch families face. This combination has required the expansion of the program to meet the needs of the children, build a permanent facility and seek financial support from the community to ensure that all the children that would benefit from the program have the opportunity to participate. Individuals, area trades people and construction companies came forward and generously donated their time, services, building materials and equipment to build a beautiful facility for the children at the ranch in Rock Springs. With the completion of the building in the fall of 2002, the Kids' Ranch was able to offer a year round program capable of safely and effectively serving more than 125 children a year.

The Kids' Ranch has found that the safest and most effective way to give children the opportunity to participate in a literacy program is to open community based tutoring centers. There are three Centers; one each in Baraboo, Sauk Prairie and Reedsburg . An individual from each of these communities coordinates the tutoring program by supervising the tutors and drivers, working closely with the children's teachers and families, monitoring the progress of the literacy program participants and tutoring children. Each community has donated space for the Centers. With the aid of volunteer drivers, three shifts of children are brought to the centers after school where they work one-on-one with a tutor twice a week throughout the school year. This not only minimizes the number of trained volunteer tutors that are required to offer a literacy program to a large number of children, but also allows the children to gather with other children and volunteers and have a nutritious snack. Other children are tutored at their school during the day. Approximately fifty children participate in the tutoring program each year. Due to the great demand for tutors, some children that have been identified as needing help learning to read, must wait to participate in the program.

Many of the children that are part of the Kids' Ranch not only experience difficulty learning to read, but also face life challenges that impede the educational process as a whole. Some children have experienced the death of a loved one (several-the death of a parent, one young girl-both of her parents) or their parents divorce, have very low self-esteem, are extremely shy or live in a world of violence or extreme poverty. Our executive director, a certified child therapist, offers supportive mental health services to the children. Our educational coordinator, an elementary school teacher, recruits, trains, and supervises the volunteer tutors. Their efforts, combined with that of the dedicated Kids' Ranch volunteers, allow many children to overcome these challenges, develop self-respect and learn to read. The grades and self-esteem of the children are soaring!