When I first heard about the Birch Creek Service Ranch I thought two things: one, I wish I could've gone as a teenager, and two, I want to let as many parents know about it as possible. We send our children off to sports camps, dance camps, scout camps (which are all important) but what about a camp where they learn about service? Isn't that a great idea?
I asked Adam Bateman, artist and co-founder of the Birch Creek Service Ranch to write a post about how attending a service camp as a youth impacted him and how parents can get their own children involved.
Grain fields cut into puzzle pieces by the Teton River. Snowy rocky peaks of Grand Teton National Park peeking over lower mountains, everything green and golden. Its early summer, 1989, Teton Valley, Idaho, I’m 14 years old and a good kid and I’m in a vast garden with Lowell L Bennion, already with Parkinson’s and over 80, and Mateo, another 14-year-old boy. Mateo stole my pocketknife two days ago and then gave it back yesterday. Lowell is a legend. I’ve heard his name a dozen times a day since I’ve been three weeks at Bennion Teton Boys Ranch—a ranch he started to teach kids how to work. We are weeding the garden. The weeds look cultivated. They are a deep green and a uniform eight inches tall. When we pull them by the roots like Lowell shows us the soil is dark and damp. Nothing has been planted so we need to clear the entire garden. We’re on our knees and using our hands.
Lowell tells me he started the ranch because three decades earlier, he sent his then teenage boy, Steve, to Teton Valley to work on a friend’s ranch and Steve returned a man.
In those three decades Lowell, a teacher, found a way to purchase land and farm it with a bunch of boys from the city each summer. He also founded the Utah Food Bank and became a well-known humanitarian in Utah. He was famous for wearing the same sweater everyday because he only needed one. He was famous for visiting the sick and the elderly. He taught that people need companionship as much as they need shelter and food. He provided all three for hundreds of people.
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It’s 2010 and I’m at a service event sponsored by the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center and the Utah Food Bank. I’m here because I’m helping take some food to the poor in my car and because I run a camp just like the one Lowell started, his now closed.
A board member for both organizations is talking. He’s talking about how Lowell was able to reach people across generations and across cultural differences. He’s talking about how Lowell worked hard until his death. He is telling a story about a time when Lowell was gardening with two campers at Bennion Ranch who didn’t know how to work. About how he didn’t talk to the boys—he just outworked them and by his example got them to work hard and connected with them. That board member had no idea that one of those boys was in the audience.
It wasn’t working with Lowell that changed my life. It was the two years I spent as a camper at Bennion Ranch and the several years I spent working as a counselor there getting indoctrinated by the principals of community, service, and hard work taught by Lowell.
Birch Creek Service Ranch, in Central Utah, is the ranch I co-founded and based on the program at Bennion Ranch. Now in our ninth summer, we teach good kids—boys and girls—the value of community service and hard work. They spend four hours each morning doing authentic farm work for our needy neighbors. They provide 5000 hours of service each summer. They have fun too. They ride horses and play soccer and make ceramic pots and go backpacking in Utah’s wilderness. They learn to do difficult and worthwhile things and be proud of themselves for doing so. They learn to be better, stronger, less self-centered. Their grades improve in school. They go home less picky eaters. They learn to value community. They learn to serve. They learn about Lowell L Bennion. They learn to garden.
2011 dates are:
Boys Session 1 (JUN 13– JUL 6) 12-15 year old boys
BoysSession 2 (JUL 11– AUG 3) 12-15 year old boys
Girls Session 3* (AUG 5 – AUG 19) 12-15 year old girls
birch creek service ranch (rough cut #1 march 23, 2010) from
Please see here for more information.
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2011 dates are:
Boys Session 1 (JUN 13– JUL 6) 12-15 year old boys
BoysSession 2 (JUL 11– AUG 3) 12-15 year old boys
Girls Session 3* (AUG 5 – AUG 19) 12-15 year old girls
birch creek service ranch (rough cut #1 march 23, 2010) from
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19 reactions:
Great, great idea.
Just this morning I heard on the news that the harder you work, the longer you live.
Adam and Eric are my cousins and I can attest to their goodness, hard work, integrity and brilliance in what they do. Really incredible men. My son spent a couple of summers at Birch Creek and he absolutely loved it.
Have kids? Send them to Birch Creek. Send them! Send them! Send them!
My three daughters have gone for the last few years and I couldn't be more grateful! they are wonderful girls and love the time they have at the ranch. They have made life-long friends and have learned lessons that will help them their whole lives.They have learned to work hard an play hard. they have learned the relationship between service and the feeling of accomplishment.They have hiked until they thought they night die and then have bragged about that hike for years to anyone who will listen. I cannot say enough how much I love that they have been able to attend this camp!
Our son went there three summers ago, and even though I can't say he knows how to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together, he has an abiding work ethic that astounds me. To this day he knows how to put his head down and make things happen, whether doing a chore I ask of him or carrying a heavy load on miles of trail in the high sierra. This was, without a doubt (and I'm saying this without hyperbole) the single best thing that happened to him in those quiet, fuddled middle school years.
As a matter of fact, we're sending our daughter this year...and her older brother never misses an opportunity to mention how much she needs it.
Both of my kids, a boy and a girl have been campers for the last two summers.
The transformation that came over my daughter has been the most significant. The level of self esteem and enlightenment she achieved through deep and lasting friendships, hard-work, service and enjoyment of the outdoors (the lack of electronic influence is a huge bonus) is unsurpassed.
It's an experience that doesn't come along very often these days- with all the daily distractions of life, teaching kids to work hard and play hard is not an easy task. Thanks so much to Eric and Adam for carrying on such a indispensible experience for youngsters. My kids returned from camp happy, consciencious, funny, hard-working, and appreciative teenagers.
We all can't wait for camp this summer!
I attended this camp 2 years in a row. I loved having an opportunity to work with a community of youth interested in serving others. Doing hard things built my confidence and independence.
My son has attended Birch Creek the past two summers and LOVED it! It truly has given him a better work ethic and he jumps up much faster when asked to help with something. We so appreciate what Adam and Eric do for young people! It is soooo needed in todays "ME,ME" society.
My son went to Birch Creek for three summers as a camper and one summer as a counselor and had an amazing time. He considers Adam and Eric friends. He loves Birch Creek and would spend his whole summer there is he could. My two oldest daughters have spent one summer there as well. We have family ties to the land the ranch is on and Jacob feels so at home there. Please send your boys and girls there! They will learn so much.
Not only did my summer experiences at the ranch change my life but years later, my three nephews and two nieces were transformed. They each came away from the ranch more interested in other people, anxious to be helpful, and appreciating the peace nature can bring. After their first summer they spent the subsequent school year setting aside their savings to attend the ranch the next year. I look forward to the year when my own children are old enough to fall in love with Birch Creek Service Ranch.
My son and 2 daughters have all attended birch creek service ranch for 2 summers. It has been a highlight for each of them. The have loved the work projects, the learning activities, and the social aspect of the ranch. My children have definitely benefited from attending the service ranch. It was worth every penny. (They even raved about the meals)
I have had the fortune of watching the ranch at work for the past four summers, as I live just a few miles away from where it is based, and I just want to say that I hear very positive things from the community about the service from the ranch.
I know Adam and Eric to be sincere about their belief in service and their passion for the ranch. They are both exceptional individuals.
I have really enjoyed going to the Ranch. I have been there 4 years and all of them have been a blast. It really helps boys to build a work ethic and to work long and hard. I always have satisfaction going to Spring city and seeing barns I painted, fences I put up, empty lots where we took down trees, and all sorts of activities. We really do a great thing for the community and I improves our lives as well.
I am so glad to hear that the Birch Creek Service Ranch exists! I hope to send my children there! I love the principles the ranch is founded upon.
i'm so happy to see this. my brother-in-law is the nice man in the yellow shirt in the video. i know how much the ranch means to him and how much work he and so many others have put into the ranch to make sure it functions well.
thanks for posting this!
Wow, this looks great! Thanks for posting this, cjane. I would love to have my sons attend this. If I had daughters I would love to have them attend also. What a wonderful story about Lowell. He is a great example to us all, and I love that he only had one sweater because that's all he needed. What a character!
I'm a big fan of Birch Creek Service Ranch. It's amazing to see the affects of such a place on boys and girls. I wish I had been able to go as a kid. Luckily I can go help out as an adult. Please send your kids, they will love it.
I believe in the mission of the ranch and feel that it is desperately needed by our teenagers in our society where outdoor work and play opportunities are scarce in their overbooked lives. I wish I could attend myself!
We love Adam Bateman. He's such a good guy. He served an LDS mission with my husband back in 1995 and we enjoy seeing him now and then. He is so passionate about this camp and he really cares about the well being of the kids. We are sending our 12 year old this summer. :)
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