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Look for the YBGR Giving Tree in the Center Court of Billings Rimrock Mall this holiday season!

While visiting the Rimrock Mall, pick a mitten from the YBGR Giving Tree and it will have a simple gift request for the children at the Ranch.  Gifts for our boys and girls such as playing cards, art supplies, board games, socks and mittens. 

These simple gifts will make the holidays so much brighter for our kids!

We are grateful to Rimrock Mall for choosing Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch again this year as one of the charities granted a Giving Tree. 

And THANK-YOU to all the generous shoppers for including Yellowstone’s at-risk youth in your Christmas giving this year!

This year’s unique YBGR Christmas ornament celebrates the Ranch’s Pheasant Program.

Boys and girls at YBGR now take part in monitoring egg incubation, raising chicks, building pheasant pens, and continuously caring for the birds. The program helps children maintain daily obligations and learn about animal life cycles.  

Once the pheasants are fully grown, the birds are released into the wild, either at an area wetland site or sold to individuals for stocking ranch land.  The maximum capacity for the program is 4,000 birds.  The Ranch keeps about 50 hens and 15 roosters to breed for the following year’s program.  

The Pheasant Program is just another way YBGR is enriching the lives of troubled children, and is made possible by generous individuals and businesses. 

This past August, YBGR held memorial services on campus to celebrate the lives of two dedicated people who spent their careers making a difference in the lives of others. 

Tom Barrett and Devin Michaelis were both employees of our school, Yellowstone Academy.  

Tom will be permanently remembered at the campus rec center where the Barrett’s Billards sign now hangs as a reminder of his love of the game and the many children he taught to play.

The Devin Michaelis Memorial Bench, created by the YBGR shop classes, sits on the south side of the Heptner Building where youth, staff, and visitors may rest and enjoy our beautiful campus.

Tom and Devin left behind a Legacy of Caring that will be carried on by the many Caring People Preparing Youth for Life at YBGR.

The holiday shopping season is here!

Whether you are shopping early, last minute, on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, we invite you to support Yellowstone by shopping AmazonSmile.

Amazon will donate .05% of your purchase to Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch Foundation whenever you shop AmazonSmile from your computer, tablet or smart phone!

You can also shop and contribute through the donor generated Ebay for Charity site.  Ten percent of each sale will come to Yellowstone through our PayPal Giving Fund.  Browse through over 1300 items including trading cards, comic books, music memorabilia, and much more. 

We are looking for a few more Secret Santas to make this year’s annual youth Christmas at YBGR possible.

Learn more about this 50 year tradition of the Secret Santa Shopping Trip.  Then visit our Donate page.

We are also looking to add to our Winter Clothing Fund.  Many kids arrive at the Ranch with no clothing suitable for Montana’s cold and snow.  Yellowstone Foundation strives to keep a fund available for purchase of coats, boots, hats, mitten, and scarves as needed. 

THANK YOU – for making the holidays warm and bright for YBGR kids!

As October came to a close, Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch kids participated in a week of fun fall activities. 

The residential lodges competed in a Haunted Gingerbread House contest.  The winning lodge received pizzas and sodas on Halloween, and bragging rights for a whole year.

YBGR kids made their own outdoor carnival over Halloween weekend by creating booths for games like Plinko with plenty of candy prizes.

Pumpkin Chucking is a particularly popular competition for YBGR staff and kids on a campus with plenty of surrounding fields to play in.

Evening entertainment included movie nights and special treats.

To better meet their students’ educational needs, teachers at Yellowstone Academy (YA) are increasingly changing and adapting their classroom to facilitate collaborative techniques and activities that have proven effective.

As a result, YA needs new desks for students that are more easily moved and chairs that are separate from the desks to better facilitate group activities and allow for social distancing. These new desks and chairs also have a smooth finish which allows for easier cleaning between uses.

Yellowstone Foundation is reaching out to our local businesses, community partners, and donors to raise funds to purchase new class room furniture for Yellowstone Academy.  Special needs students at YA need the best possible environment for academic success.

“I was a neurodiverse student,” reports Ellie, a former YA student who is currently in her second year of nursing school.  “I didn’t learn the same way as my peers and really struggled in school.  I didn’t think there was any hope for me to become a nurse or anything else for that matter.”

Learn more about Yellowstone Academy’s Desks-for-Success campaign and how you can help.

When Jonathan arrived at Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch Foundation in December of 2007, he was an extremely depressed 13-year-old who was struggling with his diagnoses of Asperger’s, anxiety, and bi-polar disorder.  Fast forward to the present, and Jonathan has successfully completed high school and college.  

“I learned more about myself in my ten months at YBGR than I had in the previous thirteen years of my life,” says Jonathan today.

Yellowstone Academy’s K-12 special education program helped Jonathan overcome his learning challenges.   YBGR continued to help Jonathan achieve his academic goals at college through Yellowstone Foundation’s Alumni Scholarship.  

Learn more about Jonathan’s academic journey in our Fall Wrangler newsletter cover story.  The latest Wrangler edition has a roundup of student stories, summer activities, back-to-school updates, and much more.  

Start enjoying the 2022 YBGR Calendar today!

Our newest issue opens with a September-December 2021 spread so you can use it immediately.

We’re celebrating 65 Years of Caring in 2022 and include a special spotlight on the YBGR Ranch Program.  

Our full color photo calendar features YBGR kids at work and play.  Each month is accompanied by a motivational Bible verse for a year full of blessings.

Request your copy of the 2022 YBGR Calendar today!

YBGR’s farm-and-ranch program is hard at work this fall feeding cattle and horses, stacking hay and straw bales, digging ditches and harrowing pastures. These are just a few of the chores the Ranch’s old tractor is no longer able to handle.

“We aren’t four walls. We’re four hundred acres,” YBGR’s farm program director Gary Adams likes to say. We are no small operation. YBGR has 130 acres in crops and runs about 100 registered Angus on another 110 acres.

A JD 8300 tractor is on Gary’s wish list – being the right size and capacity for our operation which actively involves YBGR kids. We hope to be able to find a well-maintained used tractor that’s either affordable on our budget or might be donated.

If you can help, contact Kristi at Yellowstone Foundation 406-656-8772.

Since 1957, Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch has been committed to improving the lives of troubled youth through hands-on learning and involvement with agriculture. Watch our video to learn more about YBGR farm programs.

Yellowstone Foundation has a winning strategy for donors contemplating the sale of appreciated property.

Meet Cliff and Georgia, retired landlords who used their apartment complex to generate both immediate cash and fund a Charitable Remainder Trust.

This Sell Part/Give Part plan allows property owners to have the best of all worlds – immediate cash proceeds, charitable deductions that off-set capital gains tax, and future income. 

Call us today and let us show you how!

Don’t let your cash Rollover and Play Dead.

This young lady and her canine pal can teach you a New Trick.

A Yellowstone Gift Annuity will Retrieve immediate tax savings for you!

You’ll Sit Up and Beg for guaranteed income for life. 

Speak to us and find out what a Yellowstone Gift Annuity can do for you!