I recently had the opportunity to visit our Buckland campus for the first time. I packed my bags and headed up for WinterFest – but I didn’t go alone! I don’t particularly relish driving long distances by myself, so I recruited my husband to come along.

But I may have had an ulterior motive, besides wanting a personal chauffer. You see, although I talk a lot to my husband – his name is Evan, by the way - about what great work we do here at the Ranch, and how awesome our youth and staff are, I wasn’t entirely sure it was getting through to him. When he told me that someone he worked with said that our P.A. campus was where we sent all of our “really bad kids”, I knew I’d made the right choice in encouraging him to see firsthand what we’re all about.

Here’s the thing – we don’t have any “really bad kids”. We have kids who have, often through no fault of their own, ended up in a situation where they needed a little extra help to get back on the right track. That’s what we do here.

Now, I know Evan knows that. But I also know the power of a stereotype. So I was very interested to see how he’d react to being around a couple dozen “really bad kids” for a day of fun-filled winter activities. While he stayed pretty much on the sidelines for most of the day, I feel his reaction to when it was time for us to head out was pretty telling of how much fun he’d had. As we climbed into the car to head home, we both lamented the distance we had to drive – because we wished we could stay longer! (He also nearly jumped for joy at the bannock available for lunch, and was particularly pleased with having hot dogs as a main course.)

Just to make sure, though, I asked him a few days later how his experience had been. Evan is a man of very few words, so the phrase he chose to describe his time was, in my mind, very telling.

Without skipping a beat, he said, “I was blown away by the positivity.”

When he said that, I knew he’d go back to work and tell his co-worker just what I’d been telling him all along. We don’t have any “really bad” kids. What we do have is a team of staff working hard to help youth, and while it might not always be roses, we often have a ton of fun doing it.