Growing hope: Single moms with children welcome at Blue Haven Ranch
ARGYLE, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - Just outside the hustle and bustle of city life, there's a four acre plot of land in Krum with a purpose of growing hope and healing.
"You've got to be able to start with what you have, where you're at and then build," said Aubrey Schlackman.
She and her husband Bryan have been working to build since 2020, when Aubrey first got the idea to start Blue Haven Ranch. It's a non-profit ministry that works with single pregnant women who already have children.
"Our non-profit really is a post choice support," Aubrey said.
Right now they're helping five moms. They find and pay for housing, offer farm therapy at their own home and they'll eventually get greenhouses up and running. They want to expand.
"Everything is somewhere else," Aubrey said. "We're housing the moms in apartments, We're paying for that. We're meeting in a church, and that's going really well."
Now, with ten moms on their waitlist and interest continuing to grow, Aubrey and Bryan are hoping to expand their program to a much larger property just a few miles from where they live. They want to build a maternity ranch, with cottages for the moms.
"We do counseling. We do career development. We do financial budgeting classes. We're going to start doing life skills training," Bryan told CBS 11 News. "That is all way more efficient to be done in one location, on the ranch."
For now, they'll continue helping with what they have. Their program is deeply rooted in their Christian beliefs.
"We don't require our moms to be Christian, and if they're not that's totally fine," Aubrey said. "We just ask that, as we respect what they believe, they respect what we believe and they just participate."
It's a longer-term program. Once the baby is born, they help the moms for up to 18 months.
"We are pro-life, unapologetically pro-life," Bryan said. "If you want to be pro-life, you have to be pro-mom and pro-love and pro-family."
Bryan and Aubrey say it will take at least a couple of years to really get the ranch going, but they are now under contract for the land. They say they've received a lot of support from other organizations and community partners, but they can always use more.
They'd also love interested businesses to reach out to them to help create a pipeline so once the moms wrap up career training and are ready to move on, they have some prospects for work.
Click here if you're interested in helping or applying for their waitlist.