Here is our report on projects we have worked on throughout this spring, summer, and fall season, including upgrades, repairs, and maintenance at Miracle Mountain Ranch.
Fort Wilderness
The first turret of Fort Wilderness was finished! This new space was used for our overnighters during Summer Camp, a church fellowship night, staff outings, and Horse Lovers’ retreat. We will continue to use it for other upcoming events. This summer, we also received a $32,000 grant from the Warren Community Foundation for the Fort. We are very thankful for this investment and plan to start building the second turret before the snow comes. We will do as much as possible this winter and continue as spring arrives. Our vision is to eventually add restrooms, allowing us to host retreats at the Fort.
Volunteer Updates
We could not operate this ministry without volunteers. Throughout the past few months, we have had volunteers who worked on staff housing, painted the Ox Yoke, cut grass, washed dishes, served as Camp Nurse, ran equipment, fixed equipment, cut trees, and much more. If you are one of those volunteers, we say thank you!
New Archery Center
Teddy Purdie and Josh Snyder completed the archery center with a second-story shooting area and finished the landscaping. Thank you to The United Fund of Corry, which helped accomplish this with two grants. Thousands of youth will use this center, which is one of the most popular areas on the ranch.
New Freezer
Early this spring, our freezer died. Individuals and a church in Indiana stepped up to cover the cost of over $10,000 in needed repairs. It was fun to see God work in this way, and Darci Hatley sure is excited to have a nice, cold, working freezer for all of the Ranch food!
Staff Housing
Our end-of-year campaign last year involved purchasing the Conklins’ property. Thankfully, with the help of many supporters, we were able to pay off the mortgage on that property! However, the second part of that project is to restore the farmhouse on the property so that a staff family can use it. Our leadership believes the house would be great for the Marshall family, who are quickly outgrowing their current home on the Ranch. This will open up their house to be available to another staff family. Even though we have made progress, more staff housing is still needed. We are estimating the cost of the rebuild to be around $150,000, which will be the main focus of our coming end-of-the-year campaign.
Please let us know if you are interested in volunteering or sponsoring one of these ongoing projects. Once again, we couldn’t do any of this without you. We so appreciate each one of you and your kindness to the ministry. You can click here to support the project.
