News:
St. John's Lutheran Church of Grove City will again be donating bikes for The Buckeye Ranch’s Annual Christmas Bike Project that provides bicycles to children in the Ranch’s Square One Foster Care Network who could not otherwise afford a bicycle. This year St. John’s received a grant from “Thrivent for Lutherans” to help fund this project, which calls for plans to purchase, assemble and deliver 30 bikes to the Ranch’s foster care children.
Leave a Mark Ministries held its 9th Annual Biker Sunday event on July 16th donating all proceeds to the Ranch. The show featured Michael W. Smith and was a great success, for more details go to www.leaveamark.org.
According to an article in The Columbus Dispatch from 2005, The Buckeye Ranch’s Square One Foster Care program was ranked second in the state of Ohio for the facilitation of adoptions. Statistical information was compiled by Hornby Zeller Associates. Read More
OSU Coach supports the Ranch. Read More
SBC announces the Ranch receives an Excellerator grant. Read More
The Schott Foundation Awards the Ranch a $100,000 Grant. Read More
Events:
The Buckeye Ranch Family Fall Festival is scheduled for Saturday, October 18, 2008 from 10am to 3pm at our Grove City campus location. Kids and adults of all ages are welcome to come enjoy food, games and fun! Contact Laurel Marks for more information at lmarks@buckeyeranch.org
The 2008 KeyBank-Buckeye Ranch Gala was Sunday, April 20, 2008 at Lifesyles Pavilion featuring Billy Joel. We raised over $125,000, which will benefit the programs at The Buckeye Ranch. For information on next year's gala contact Nick Rees at nrees@buckeyeranch.org.
The 16th Annual Charlie Hill Memorial Golf Outing was held Friday, June 20, 2008 at Foxfire Golf Club in Lockbourne, OH. We had close to 100 players join us for this annual golf outing. All proceeds go towards the programs at The Buckeye Ranch. For information on next year's golf outing, please contact Laurel Marks at lmarks@buckeyeranch.org
The Buckeye Ranch to benefit from new bike-building program
Local businesses and non-profits have joined forces for a unique program to donate new bicycles to children at The Buckeye Ranch, an Ohio-based treatment facility for children with behavioral, emotional and mental health issues.
The bicycles will be used primarily by children in The Buckeye Ranch’s residential program and Foster Care program. The Buckeye Ranch offers residential treatment for as many as 88 children, at a time, at their Grove City campus and currently has 300 children living in their therapeutic foster homes, located throughout Ohio. In total, The Buckeye Ranch is providing care for more than 2,000 children everyday.
"Most of us remember our first bike," said Rick Rieser, President and CEO of The Buckeye Ranch. "The children in our care needs are no different. These donated bikes allow our clients to be "kids" while they are undergoing treatment for their issues."
The donation is made possible through Cycle Works, a unique corporate team development program conceived by The Nuhop Center for Experiential Learning, a non-profit experiential education center based in Ashland, OH, roll:. a high design, customer-centric cycling shop based in Columbus and sparkspace, an Arena District meeting venue where the program have been held over the past few months.
Trevor Dunlap, CEO of the Nuhop Center, and designer of CycleWorks, described the program as a philanthropic effort with many committed partners.
"The Nuhop Center was founded in 1974 with a mission to serve children with special needs," said Dunlap. "We are very pleased that partners with similar interests have come to the table for the benefit of kids at The Buckeye Ranch. The Nuhop Center, sparkspace, and roll: have all made generous donations of time and money to this effort as well as our corporate partners."
Bicycles were purchased by Nationwide Insurance, OSU Medical, Grant Hospital, and National Church Residences all corporate participants in the CycleWorks activity, and the Nuhop Center from roll: who provided new bikes at below cost. roll: has a long standing relationship with The Buckeye Ranch through their existing roll: model program which gives refurbished gently used bikes to The Buckeye Ranch annually. Additionally, sparkspace provided the venue for the CycleWorks program.
During the CycleWorks program participants work together to assemble functioning bicycles from raw parts. Nuhop Center facilitators add elements of challenge and fun to the experience by reversing the roles of management and staff, and adding communication barriers such as blindfolds and time constraints as well as a scavenger hunt for parts within the Arena District.
The goal of the CycleWorks program is to build a new bike for a child with special needs or needy families and in doing so, teach communication, teamwork, and decision making skills to the program participants.
"Our team building event was a great success!! In a very unique, tangible sense, Cycle Works demonstrated the innate benefit of not only working toward a common goal, but how to work for a comprehensive purpose. What a fantastic program to bring teams together in a comfortable atmosphere."
Danielle Thomas -National Church Residences
"I was truly impressed with the team's (SparkSpace/Nuhop) ability to deliver a program that met our key objectives: Have fun, further develop relationships and tie the experience back into the medical center's mission "To improve people's lives through innovation in research, education and patient care."
This was possible because members of the team took the time to listen to our needs, ask questions and tailored their overall comments and tied into our overall mission." Ron Kibbe – OSU Med
Dunlap hopes this will be the first of many CycleWorks programs to come. Since April, The Cycle Works Project has donated 45 new bicycles to The Buckeye Ranch.
"We think this is a wonderful model program by which participants satisfy their goals of enhanced team work and communication, and also help a charitable cause in the community." Dunlap said.
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