It has been 15 years since Vicki Ellis first walked through the doors of a live-in crisis center in Tennessee. What she saw there forever changed her perspective of children who go through emotional crisis, of what kinds of families need assistance and how a community provider can actually reach out and influence the development of healthy, functioning community members.
Since then, Ellis has dedicated her life and her family to building a similar service in the Capital Region. That manifested into what Ellis now calls Heritage Ranch. When complete, the crisis center will provide “life skills training to community youth,” she says.
“Our children’s home will provide housing, educational support and counseling to children ages 8-18, in the midst of personal or family crisis from which they require respite. We believe, regardless the circumstances, support, training and time will equip youth to become productive members of society who pass on the inheritance of hope and healing they receive to subsequent generations.
“I run into, all the time, almost daily, a situation in which I can look at a kid and know that, for them and their family, Heritage Ranch can help them overcome the challenges that they are facing and not end up homeless or incarcerated.”
And community members are responding to Ellis’ plea for a safe haven and a solution center for troubled youth. “One of my first donations came from a man who was only 18 years old, raised by a single mom,” she says. “He gave out of his own resources to support something that I was doing, something that the Ranch was doing.”
Though Ellis has begun to see the fruits of her labor in the children engaged in her school-related outreach programs, she says the impact is yet to be seen. “How do you measure the number of kids that will come through our program that will become community employees, philanthropists, healthy husbands and wives? For any child that comes through here, it is going to be exponential how it affects the Baton Rouge community.”
Age: 29
What is your best business advice?
“Do something bigger than you think you can do, even when people tell you it can’t happen.”
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