By donating and sponsoring you can Lead for Change by helping us continue our programs and launch new services to our community. Help us support our mission to develop and open doors for future leaders to learn:

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• • $25 - Help us provide treats and supplements for our most valuable instructors: Our horses!

  • $50 - Help us provide necessary materials for our herds' care and well-being.

  • $100 - Provides a veteran one session of our Horse Wisdom for Heroes program. 

  • $150 - Help us continue to serve our community through our suicide grief support program for parents and spouses, PASOS, in a safe, socially-distanced manner.

  • $250 - Provides one week of the Leading for Change for Teens program to an at-risk teen girl to help her become a leader for herself and her community. 

  • $500 - Provides a veteran entry into an entire 6 week Horse Wisdom for Heroes program.

  • $1000 - Provides an at-risk teen girl entry into an entire Leading for Change for Teens program.

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When First Nature Foundation launched in late 2017, we had a vision that our ranch in Harmony, Florida be a place where the past, present, and future of leadership come together for the dignity and benefit of all. We could never have foreseen that just before the ranch was ready to welcome current and future leaders of all ages to learn, the world would go into isolation in response to a pandemic.

 

We purchased the ranch property in late 2018 and have been developing it ever since. It was just an open field without even water or electric…minimal fencing and no buildings whatsoever. The past few years, even through a pandemic, we have continued to evolve: Construction on our classroom barn and covered arena is complete and holding programs, gardens been blooming, and we have welcomed new horses to the herd, with seven in total calling the ranch home. We have conducted many private individual tours to introduce people to the facility. We have started launching in-person programs, including Horseplay for Leaders, Yoga At The Ranch, and Horse Wisdom for Heroes. 

 

We believe that our mission to cultivate 21st Century Leadership is critical during this period of political and social transition. Core self-leadership and collective leadership skills are more important now than ever. Our board and staff are committed to adapting and finding new ways to offer our services to the community.

 

Our inaugural program, PASOS, which stands for Parents and Spouses of Suicide, a twice-per-month virtual grief support group program launched in January of 2021 and is ongoing. Participants tells us it's the best group they've found to serve their needs. We have participants from Central Florida and beyond, including the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and even Canada. 

 

In early 2022, we launched our Horse Wisdom for Heroes program for veterans , a 6-week program to help with stress reduction techniques as they go forward in their journey of living their best lives. We have had three groups graduate and cannot wait to begin a new cohort with the near year.

By giving you will help them: 

• Experience a sense of peacefulness within

• Increase their sense of connection and belonging 

• Enhance their self-awareness and strengthen their reflection and renewal practices  

• Identify habitual behavioral patterns that impede their effectiveness 

• Reconnect with the natural world 

• Feel some joy and hope in a world of urgent challenges 

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We are speaking with social workers in the high schools in the local board of education about our Leading for Change for Teens, hopefully to launch in late 2023. This program is designed to help teen girls who are at-risk to gain practical skills to lead the change they want to see in their own lives and in the world. The program will begin and end with weekend retreats at the ranch facility, and will feature weekly virtual group coaching sessions. Your generosity will make it possible for a girl to learn about herself and her leadership potential. She will experience all this in a wise "learning herd" made up of horses, other girls and other living beings in the natural setting of First Nature Ranch.

By giving, you contribute to a girl's:

• Experience of herself as part of nature not separate from it

• Self-awareness and self-regulation in the face of difficulties

• Finding her personal vision and acting on it

• Noticing habits that get in the way of being her best self

• Building a local community for social change

• Feeling joy and hope in a world of urgent challenges

 

We look forward to welcoming you to our campus. If you would be interested in scheduling a tour, please contact us!