Grit & Grace Ranch

05/24/2024

Saphira here to remind you that Grit & Grace Ranch will be closed on Monday, 05/27/24, for Memorial Day. We hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday weekend! 🇺🇸

05/22/2024

Hey friends!

Anyone have any wooden crates they are willing to part with and donate to the girls in the GaitWay program for their first jewelry booth?

We will put nails in them and use them as display pieces for their goodies.

You can find us in front of Cozy Cottage for the Strawberry Festival on June 1-2 if you want to support these little entrepreneurs. All the proceeds will go to funding the Dream Maker program where teen girls ages 13-19 learn essential life skills through their horsemanship lessons and working on a functioning horse ranch.

Picture of a past show set up for attention.

Thank you so much in advance for your help!

05/15/2024

In explaining the GaitWay program to one of our Dream Maker’s teachers yesterday, and then having a conversation with a Dream Maker parent, I came to the conclusion that above all else …

🐴 The Dream Maker program is a personal development program for teen girls.

*We help them learn social skills and how to navigate relationships, with each other, with their bosses and teachers, with their families, and with themselves.

*We help them with discipline. It’s the end of the school year, so an example of that is how we have girls making a race to pass their classes. We help them make plans for that, or sit with them while they do their work for some extra accountability.

*We teach them responsibility and how to have high standards.

*We teach them to have grit and not give up when it’s hard. Because the truth is, the girls don’t come to us living GaitWay’s core values, they have to be taught how to live them.

Sometimes girls come to us with no social skills, or a habit of being dishonest, or as bullies, or a lack of work ethic, or …. or …. or ….

And we teach each girl how SHE needs to be taught. Sometimes we’re telling parents that they absolutely cannot let their kiddo miss a day at the ranch, and other times we’re telling them that their kid doesn’t get to come this week.

The individual strategies for developing the girls are as unique as they are. And we don’t give up, we keep trying until we find a plan that works.

We are passionate about developing strong, kind, honest, hard-working, responsible girls.

📸: Dream Makers at the Jefferson County Trail Riders Saddle Club - JCTR horse show this weekend. Give these girlies some love for all the work they’re doing to become the best versions of themselves.

05/13/2024

The GaitWay girls first bake sale this weekend at the Jefferson County Trail Riders Saddle Club - JCTR show was a smashing success!

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported. And a huge thank you to Suzette and the JCTR team for allowing us to set up and fundraise.

We’ll see everyone back at the JCTR show next month, and we’ll bring more cinnamon rolls, we promise. 😉

05/06/2024

The GaitWay girls are having a bake sale!

You can find them at the Jefferson County Trail Riders Saddle Club - JCTR show this Saturday morning (May 11) slinging cinnamon rolls, sweet breads, cookies, and cakes.

The girlies would like to ask you for monetary donations that they can use toward buying the ingredients they need to make the goodies. They’ll be baking all day Friday.

If you would like to support these hard working kids raising funds for the horsemanship program that teaches them so much more than horsemanship, the link is here:

https://givebutter.com/gaitwaygoodies

05/02/2024

Heather here with a little series called Things I Believed About Horses Before I Knew Anything About Horses.

Up first:

Being lame meant your horse couldn’t walk and had to be put down.

I grew up on Alabama Ave in South St Louis, MO. For those of you not familiar with St Louis City, there are no horses there …

For all you other non-horsey people out there, being lame actually means the horse is limping. Or looking “off” when they walk. Or their head bobs a little weird if they take a step.

How often do they become lame? About every three days.

How do they become lame? Great question. It’s a mystery to me every single time. Like two Fridays ago when I finished up my third training ride on Esme of the week and she was perfectly fine and then that evening when she had a lesson she was all of sudden lame and couldn’t be used for over a week.

Sounds a little suspicious and maybe like someone just wanted a little time off … I’m not pointing fingers … but 👉 🐎

I’m joking (kind of), but also doing my due diligence to educate the masses that being lame isn’t a death sentence like I believed when I was 8. The more you know … 😉😂.

📸: Esme laughing at me because her plan worked and she got a week’s vacation.

04/22/2024

Service is a core value for GaitWay

Saturday one of GaitWay’s Dream Maker graduates and one of Grit & Grace Ranch’s riding instructors took time out of their weekend to take some of the older Dream Makers on a sunset trail ride. (They aren’t allowed to trail ride unsupervised, so to get to do that they have to have adults with them.)

There are so many ways to serve in life. You can cook or bake (like my husband who will feed you into a coma and my sweet little Dream Maker, Jeana, who always has a sweet treat for people). You can serve by being a good friend and listening well when people have problems or awesome things to share. You can serve by growing a garden and sharing the fruits of your labor.

Let’s talk about service. What are your favorite ways to serve the people you love?

Also, give these cuties some love ❤️ on this post as service to them by helping us reach more people with our mission.

04/18/2024

A big part of our program at GaitWay is entrepreneurship education through having micro businesses that the girls help with, manage, and work within.

We currently have two businesses, jewelry and a garden, and next month we’ll be adding a third with a baked goods business.

The jewelry team has a limited edition GRIT necklace coming soon for Mother’s Day. Keep your eyes peeled next week when we’ll be giving you all the details.

You can’t get a pearl without some grit. Beautiful things come from hardship … if you’re willing to see it that way.

Give Jeana and her jewelry team some encouragement on this post (heart it up, people ❤️). They’re gonna be hustling the next couple weeks to make this promotion happen.

Every time you support one of their tiny businesses you’re not only supporting the program financially with your purchases, you’re supporting their education by giving them the opportunity to learn the skills of business. It’s such a wonderful way for you to help us serve them.

04/12/2024

Bonnie’s bestie, Dakota, had a scrape on her leg that needed inspection, so she was put in a stall. She was only in there for about an hour. But Bonnie made it clear how rude it was for us to separate them for even one second … and stood watch next to the stall until her friend made bail.

04/11/2024

I was up at the break of dawn today for a call with one of my favorite humans, Diana McLaughlin (pictured) who is a professional bookkeeper for small businesses at The Abundance Bookkeeper. Diana is donating her time to get GaitWay set up on our QuickBooks Online account and teaching the girls and I how to keep the books for a nonprofit.

Diana and I have never met in person (because she lives in Ireland) but had an instant online connection and have been internet besties ever since. She’s a champion of women and most of her clients are ladies. Her energy is gorgeous and effervescent and infectious and she’s exactly the kind of human I want to bring into the GaitWay universe.

Not only does she teach bookkeeping (she’ll also do your books for you, that’s just not how we are utilizing her beautiful brain), but she teaches you how to have an abundant mindset and positive energy around money.

She’s the real deal, people. Go follow her. I promise you’ll love her as much as I do.

Diana, you’re the shiniest of gems and I cannot thank you enough for investing your time and talents into the girls and I. 🥹

04/10/2024

Our favorite part of horse shows are the people. The horses are cute and all, but horse people … the best of the best.

📸 Ady Nicole Photography, LLC

04/09/2024

Cutie little new Dream Maker learning how to roll a hose properly. The basics are boring, but so important to their success. 😍

Last week we had 4 new Dream Makers start in the program.

The first thing they learn is how to properly do all the non-horse chores, like rolling up a hose, mucking out a stall, watering an arena, or cleaning bathroom baseboards.

You know, the boring basics. How to have respect for other people’s things and how to leave places and people better than you found them. All the things that allow us the ability to continue to be invited to run our program out of Grit & Grace Ranch’s gorgeous facilities.

Level 1 Dream Makers are not doing anything exciting or fun right now, but they ARE learning incredibly important things.

Give Savannah some love on this post. She did an excellent job rolling the hose. (Which is actually kind of hard and very time consuming to do properly.)

04/08/2024

Cutter’s eclipse glasses. 🕶️

What is everyone doing for the eclipse today?

04/05/2024

Devynn’s seeds for the GaitWay seedling plant bundles are POPPING! 🌱😍

04/03/2024

This is a big, busy week at GaitWay They have four new Dream Makers starting and SIX new adult Barn Mentors joining us.

Barn Mentor is a new position for GaitWay. Their roles are to be at the barn, working shoulder-to-shoulder with the girls, supporting them as they learn the life skills we teach.

One of the new Barn Mentors, Katie, came and did some additional training over the last few weeks because they needed her to work with Trinity on the skill of time management.

Trinity told Heather (GaitWay’s Executive Director) last night that it was one of the best shifts she’s ever had and that she felt calm and relaxed the whole night. Where she would usually feel frazzled and overwhelmed.

And it made our hearts so happy that this next layer of the GaitWay program is creating such an impact for the girls IMMEDIATELY.

We can’t wait to keep sharing their growth with you.

If you want to support GaitWay as they add to the program, sponsorships are still open. Link in the comments to check them out.

📸: Pause Button Photography

04/02/2024

Time for your morning stretches!

04/01/2024

A couple weeks ago our owner, Jackie rode in a 5-day clinic with Josh Lyons/Lyons Legacy to continue her horsesmanship education. We believe it’s important for our leaders to be constantly improving their own riding skills so they can bring that knowledge to our clients.

Here’s what Jackie had to say about her growth over the last couple Lyons clinics she’s ridden in:

6 months ago I rode in my first clinic with Josh Lyons/Lyons Legacy and took home lots of great information. That clinic had LOTS of ugly moments for Phoenix and I unfortunately but the truth is nothing worth anything is easy. If you want something you really have to work for it! I didn’t get as much time put into her as I would have liked to but the improvements were amazing. I am making a promise to myself and Phoenix to make this a priority for both of us! This 5 day clinic just blew my mind. Josh is very patient with all the questions (and if you ask to many you get pulled off your horse for a demonstration 😬 as you can see). I am still soaking in so much information and hope to retain at least half of it, so we can show up to the next one with even more improvements! Thank you so much to all the friends there offering all the encouragement ♥️

📸: Jackie with Josh Lyons. Ady Nicole Photography, LLC

03/29/2024

Last day to get your seedling/starter plant bundles ordered from Devynn and her GaitWay Garden team!

The salsa bundle has been a huge seller (of course it has, Devynn is clever, which is why she was offered the opportunity to run the GaitWay Garden).

Grab a salsa bundle now and make your own fresh salsa, grown from your own garden all summer.

All proceeds go to fund our equine facilitated learning program that teaches teen girls essential life skills (like entrepreneurship and workplace training).

Find all the details in the comments.

03/28/2024

When you’re a sassy mare who has decided it’s time to train the trainer …

Bonnie being silly yesterday when she thought no one was looking. 🤣

03/27/2024

There’s really nothing better than cherry tomatoes from your own garden.

This year, get your starter plants from the teens in the GaitWay program. All the proceeds from their plant sales help fund our equine facilitated learning programs where the girls learn essential life skills, entrepreneurship, and strength of character.

You’re going to get your plants from somewhere this year, why not support a nonprofit working hard to grow strong girls, instead of big box stores. Details in the comments.

03/26/2024

The definition of courage …

As you know, Devynn is the “business owner” for the GaitWay Garden.

She and I have a weekly meeting to plan and work through issues that may arise.

Her homework last week was to take the sample letter I wrote for her to send out asking for donations of potting soil, make it her own, and send it back to me for review by this Monday. She misunderstood the assignment and ended up editing the letter and sending it out directly to companies she found online herself.

Devynn is very stoic. She comes across as fearless.

But what I know about Devynn is that she’s not fearless. Take this photo of her for example. She was incredibly nervous about this photo shoot.

Devynn is courageous, not fearless. It takes a lot of courage at 15-years-old to send a letter to a business you don’t know asking them to support you.

She has fear. But she shows up and does the thing anyway. She does it scared. She pushes past it.

Devynn is the definition of courage. She’s the definition of grit.

And you can support her in her growth this season by buying one of her garden bundles for the GaitWay CSA. Every time you guys show up and participate in GaitWay fundraisers, you show them it’s worth doing things scared.

All the details are here. Show Devynn it’s worth it by supporting her fledgling business.

https://gaitwayinc.org/gardencsa/

(Also, if you want to donate some potting soil to Devynn, in addition to or instead of purchasing a garden bundle, send us a message. We would love support in that area as well. 🌱 🪴)

📸 photo shoot donated by the incomparable Honey & The Bee Photography. 😍

03/25/2024

You have until Friday to order your seedling/starter plant bundles from the Dream Makers in our nonprofit, GaitWay

You’re going to get the plants for your garden somewhere, wouldn’t it feel great to support some teen girls who are raising money for the nonprofit equine facilitated learning program they participate in?

Let’s make this years garden mean something extra by supporting a great cause and helping these girls learn some essential life skills.

Find all the details here:

https://gaitwayinc.org/gardencsa/

03/22/2024

That salsa seedling bundle is already a HOT seller!

When Devynn (the Dream Maker who is running the garden team this year) and I sat down to talk through our different garden fundraisers for the season, I mentioned selling baskets of salsa ingredients so people could go home and make salsa with produce from our garden.

The next meeting when we went over seedling bundles she recommended we sell you an entire salsa garden so you can grow your own salsa.

And how clever was that?!

Click the link below to learn all about the GaitWay Garden CSA, grab your salsa starter plants and grow your very own salsa this summer!

You’re going to buy your starter veggie plants somewhere, why not support some teen girls running their own business instead of supporting big box stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot. It’s a win/win.

https://gaitwayinc.org/gardencsa/

03/21/2024

At GaitWay we teach more than just horsemanship, we also teach entrepreneurship to the teen girls in our program by giving them their own businesses to build and run. Their micro businesses help us fund the program while teaching them essential life skills. It’s a win/win.

As spring and summer is upon us, our newest GaitWay micro business is the GaitWay Garden.

Devynn, a second year Dream Maker is the business “owner” of the garden and has her first product to offer you!

She will be selling seedling/starter plant bundles for you to transplant and grow in your own garden. You’re going to buy your starter plants somewhere this year, why not get them from Devynn and her team instead of Lowe’s or Home Depot?

See the flyer below for her bundle options and the link here for all the ordering details:

https://gaitwayinc.org/gardencsa/

03/18/2024

Saphira just can’t even with the fact that it’s Monday.

Anyone else’s roans starting to lighten up already? Girlfriend is looking lovely with her silver.

03/14/2024

Sunshine and stirrups. We are ready for summer over here on this stormy morning.

Part of working with horses is that you don’t get to only show up when it’s sunny and 75. You show up when it’s 60° and pouring. You show up when it’s 10° and the wind is whipping your face. You show up when it’s 110°, you’re wilting, and the horse flies are biting you.

That’s how horses teach you grit. You learn to show up whether you want to or not.

And once kids can do that with the horses, they can do it in other places. They can do it in school. They can do it at work. They can do it with their household chores or exercise.

Horses breed gritty kids.

📸 Pause Button Photography

03/12/2024

It’s the joy for me. 😍

Honey & The Bee Photography did such an amazing job on the Dream Makers’ portraits. Go give her page a follow and some love.

03/08/2024

Fun Friday!

This week let’s see your favorite photos of your furry friends napping.

Saphira is an expert napper.