Local partner Cache La Poudre Feeds fills our horses tummies ( and our hearts!)

Off of Overland drive in Fort Collins, Colorado down a wooded dirt road, you will find a hidden gem in the Northern Colorado farm and ranch community. Cache La Poudre feeds has been an unconventional, family owned feed manufacturer since 1982. Charis Youth Ranch has been purchasing Cache La Poudre’s Profile® Feeds Equine Senior for many years now with excellent results, so we decided to go in depth and share what we love so much about this local treasure. Walking into their store is like walking into the home of a dear friend. Enter through the quaint porch into the cozy warmth of the main office and you will be greeted by Sherri’s friendly “hello”. Sherri has been working in the family business since 1999. She is the voice you most often hear on the phone. Friendly, kind, unfailingly real, Sherri makes you want to come back soon just to chat. She takes great pride in the high quality and consistency of feed that they provide their customers. Often if you come by on a frosty morning you will find her dad, Ron Treiber, sitting comfortable with a hot cup of coffee browsing the paper. Ron is the owner, he and his late wife Kaaren started the family business as a retail feed store, then moved into manufacturing in 1984. Naturally the business expanded to include wholesale as well as retail customers. Kaaren passed in 1998 and Ron has since remairried to his current wife Kathy, and they live onsite. Their primary service focus is on local and regional customers, and we can testify to the deep caring and personal interest that they take in you and your livestock. “We have always strived to be personable, we know our customers, our customers know us. Being able to tailor our products to fit customers needs is one thing that sets us apart from other feed stores.” says Ron. Sherri elaborates that they are able to tailor specific feed formulas to their customers individual needs when customers buy in bulk. Her favorite thing is working with people that are nice, the relationships that are built and the connections that are made. Knowing the benefit that their feed is providing for animals and hearing about the positive results gives her the greatest satisfaction in her work. Also we learned, she loves driving the forklift! One other employee, Kurt Brewster, has been working with them since 1999....

Grateful Hearts

Thank you to our wonderful sponsors Mary Mountain Cookies and Spoons for the delicious cookie and soup donations for our volunteer appreciation dinner. We are so grateful that these companies support local non-profits like ours. Our volunteers work tirelessly to keep the Ranch operating and our horses fed throughout the winter months, we love and appreciate each and everyone one of...

Love

We love what we do. This is Cleo, one of our beautiful Warmblood mares, teaching one of our new little kiddos yesterday how to be a good leader. The lesson this week is on Love, our final set of summer sessions has begun. Our Monday kids made beautiful loving butterflys, ate snack, and worked with our loving horses. Our morning class was so full on I didn’t take any pictures. These are some snapshots from our afternoon class. Love to you all!!! Have a great...

Helping kids find freedom

My heart breaks a little with each goodbye. Today was our last session with two of our groups. They crawled right into my heart and it was so hard to say bye. Today we talked about kindness. Our craft was to paint our handprint on a container of flowers and write a kind note to someone and give them our flowers. The kids wrote such sweet things. We practiced kindness by petting Ella and Mort and saying kind things to them. We had snack together, played behind the barn, climbed rocks, picked flowers, and finally ended up in the arena to ride. I was humbled by the love and kindness each of these kiddos expressed today. I am excited for what the next set of sessions will bring, for the new kiddos I will meet, but I will never forget the immense things that God did in the little hearts of the ones pictured here. One mom expressed today in broken English her thanks to us, that her little boy (just 7) had been so afraid of everything, but after being on the ranch he was so much braver!! When he first came out to the ranch he was unsure of everything: ” I don’t want to pet him that horse might bite me” ” I don’t want to go into the pasture, I can’t walk so far”. Gradually over the course of a few sessions he grew more comfortable. He rode a horse, led the horse over obstacles, ran through the pasture, and played with new friends. He faced down a giant beetle, helped to carry tack, fed horses hay and grain, and pushed the wheelbarrow. On this, our last day, I told the kids “lets go climb the big rocks!”, he did not hesitate, he just ran with the other kids to try this exciting new thing. He climbed up the side of the large rock face, carefully turned around on the little ledge and slid down on his bottom happily squealing with laughter. This rock face is not small, but the kids love to climb up it and slide down (I have trouble climbing it myself and I am a lifelong adventurer!). This little boy was so free from fear that he scrambled up to slide down over and over again. One small boy is no longer allowing fear to keep him from adventure. God designed...

Patience

It was a good day. Our Equine Adventure was about patience!! The kids did a craft and had snack and got some riding time. We are so thankful for each moment we have together on the...