An early article about
Gentle Spirit Ranch, when they had been open less than a year:
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One more chance -- A chance in the countryA Christian foster home way out in the country offers troubled girls a place to find themselves.By Gordon Johnson
The Press-Enterprise
Published 11/11/1999AGUANGA
A long driveway, bordered by fruit trees, curves up the hill around pastures, paddocks and untilled garden plots toward several blue-trimmed, white buildings.
Songbirds twitter from perches in oak trees. Horses paw the dust. Asti and Blade, knee-high shelties, bark from the main house. Goats bleat from a pen further up the hill.
As its name suggests, Gentle Spirit Ranch invokes nature's calm.
But it's not always so peaceful, says Mark Bonacquista, 37, co-director with his wife, Ginny, 33, of the 20-acre Gentle Spirit Ranch, a new Christian foster home for troubled girls.
Sometimes, when a new girl gets dropped off, screams of anger interrupt the calm.
"Most girls don't know they are coming here. It can be very emotional. The girls scream things like: `I'm not going to stay. I'm not that bad. I'm sorry. I don't need this. What about my friends? I hate you,' " Mark says.
Some girls lock themselves inside the car with the windows rolled up and it can take hours for Mark and chagrined parents to coax them out. Some girls bolt from the car, and flee down the driveway. But they don't get far. Remote and isolated, it's a long, scary walk from the Gentle Spirit Ranch to anywhere.
It's harder yet for the girls to escape themselves. But for many, Gentle Spirit Ranch is a journey from dissipation toward a new spiritual balance.
Girls meet livestock"This is Frankie, our newest addition," says Mark of the black, spindly legged pygmy goat that's nuzzling his palm.
About 13 goats dwell in the roomy pen shared with a litter of pigs.
To raise extra money for the ranch, Mark hosts petting zoos for young children. The girls who reside here help make sure that children and farm animals interact safely.
Six girls, aged 13 to 17, live and work at Gentle Spirit Ranch. The ranch is one of 1,835 homes licensed for foster care in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
It may be the only foster home in the Inland area exclusively for private placements, according to Robert Gonzales of the state Department of Social Services and John Vaughn, supervisor of foster home licensing in San Bernardino County.
Most foster homes accept only children who are wards of the court and receive payment from social-service agencies to house them. The girls at Gentle Spirit Ranch aren't ordered there by the court. They are placed privately by their parents, who must foot at least part of the bill.
The girls aren't in serious trouble with the law, but often things have reached an impasse at home.
Gentle Spirit Ranch offers an option to parents who want to save their out-of-control children.
Most girls come as emotional wrecks, losers in the game of life. They've ditched school, hung with the wrong crowd, run away from home, and partied till they've lost their footing. Parents can't cope, teachers bemoan their poor attendance, even friends tire of their mooching.
But Mark and Ginny take them in. "When they come, in their heart of hearts, they know they are out of control. Although they don't always admit it, they are relieved to be here," Mark says.
Relieved to be in a place of structure, of learning, of friendship, of love, they begin the long climb back toward self-esteem.
At this working farm, they learn that work is not a four-letter word.
Girls who whined, stamped their feet or refused to do chores at home, rise at 6:30 a.m. to feed the animals. They make beds, do housekeeping, wash clothes, and cook breakfast before school starts at 9 a.m.
"Work has gotten a bad reputation," Mark says. "But it doesn't kill you. It makes you feel good when finished."
You should see them boast to their parents on visiting days how they laid tile, set poles for the riding arena, painted a room, worked on the barn, he says.
Mark and Ginny and their two daughters Tori, 4, and Alina, 6, live in the top floor of a converted, two-story barn. The bottom floor houses the girls, two to a room.
Upstairs, Mark sits at a roll-top desk making additional plans for their ranch, which opened last January.
It's too early yet, but later in the year, he'll till several acres and add manure and other fertilizers for an organic farm. Mark was reared on small Michigan farms. He understands the chemistry between seeds, water and good earth. The girls, most of them city-bred, will plant strawberries, onions, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers and hoe weeds between the crop rows.
At harvest, they'll sell vegetables and fruit from their 130 trees at the Temecula Farmers Market. What isn't sold will go on the table as good, healthy food for the girls.
In seasons of plenty, farming might provide up to 30 percent of the $140,000 or so each year it takes to keep the ranch operational, says Mark.
Like other non-profit organizations, money is a constant concern. Many private foster-care group homes for teens in other parts of the country charge anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 a month for each resident, Mark says.
Parents pay about $600 a month for a 15-month stay at Gentle Spirit Ranch. Other funds donated by churches, businesses and individuals keep the ranch afloat.
Mark describes his and Ginny's commitment to the ranch as a "calling,' although he hates using the word because it may sound trite. For 10 years, they worked as house parents, youth ministers and group home directors for other programs.
But they longed to start their own group home, where Mark could put his farming experience to good use while providing a safe place for teens.
Last year, a newspaper ad led him to the ranch. He used profits made on the sale of their house near Lake Arrowhead and formed a non-profit corporation to buy the ranch for $150,000. At the time, the ranch was a rundown retreat for a Whittier church.
Before they could open the school, Mark and Ginny solicited financial help and labor from church groups and civic organizations to prepare the buildings and grounds.
The barn needed to be converted from horse stalls to bedrooms for girls. Another detached building below the house had to be outfitted as a kitchen and classroom. Animal pens had to be built, corrals erected, paneling nailed, plumbing made water-tight, and still the ranch-improvement projects continue. Knotty pine paneling covers the walls of the combination kitchen and main classroom. Yet, patches of oak flooring remain unfinished.
"It all takes time," Mark says.
It's a weekday morning, and the girls usually attend class from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Many have fallen behind in school. They use A Beka curriculum, a Christian-based home-schooling program. It is self-paced so students can accelerate learning and catch up. Some try to shoehorn two years' of school work into one year.
After working more than 10 years with hundreds upon hundreds of troubled teens, Mark says most teen crises stem from academic failure and parental abandonment.
Kids, for any number of reasons, can fall behind in school, he says. Frustrated, they band with others to ditch class and soon their studies suffer even more. When self-esteem plummets, they often turn to drugs to numb themselves against problems.
"Drugs, alcohol, disrespect for authority, sexual promiscuity are all symptoms of deeper issues," Mark says.
And many of those issues stem from distant parents, he contends. Divorce, separation and marital discord all lead to children feeling abandoned, even in two-parent families in which parents spend too much time on career and not enough time with their children, he says.
"Love and encourage the children," Mark says. That's the simple solution.
Joy in seeing changeOn this day, Gentle Spirit Ranch staff members Jeannie Gustafson, 23, and Margy Knop, 24, oversee classroom activities. Another, Christen Santana, 21, fries pork chops for lunch in the main house.
The three are college graduates who act as big sisters. Mark tries to keep a ratio of one staff member to two students, so each girl gets much individual attention.
Knop, a New Yorker who graduated from Central Bible College in Springfield, Mo., reads a book and monitors Jessica, 16, as she paints a bathroom.
At Gentle Spirit Ranch, Knop sees herself as a role model, trying to nudge girls in the right direction.
As she gets closer to the girls and they begin to trust her, they share confidences.
Coming here has been a pleasant surprise for her. "I was expecting them to be a little more like straight boxers, mean and combative. But they're not. They're sweet-spirited and have wonderful qualities about them."
Gustafson is convinced that working at the ranch is making her grow as a person.
Oh, sure she gets angry and frustrated at times. "With six girls, there's always some little drama going on. But this isn't a quick fix over a month's time. When you really invest in them, you see not just a verbal change, but a life change," she says.
Most of the girls sit around a long, dining-room table. They do math and complete English assignments. Others work at computers and video monitors.
Jessica, 16, sits at a TV studying world history. She takes notes as a teacher lectures on videotape.
Jessica, who's from San Diego, says she ended up at Gentle Spirit Ranch because she made wrong choices in life.
"I was doing a lot of drugs, mostly marijuana and alcohol, acid once or twice and coke sometimes. But mostly marijuana and alcohol because I'm a skater. That's what skaters do -- alcohol and weed," she says.
Jessica sports curly hair and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She smiles readily.
A year ago, she didn't look so wholesome. "If you'd have seen me," she says, "You'd have said, `This girl is whacked.' I had my eyebrow pierced, lip pierced, nose pierced, my hair dyed black and I shaved much of my head. I wore black contacts and bright-colored clothes. I wanted to be different, to be noticed."
She landed at Gentle Spirit Ranch because her parents couldn't trust her anymore. She was a constant runaway, and didn't even live at home much after she was 14. Instead, she drifted from friend to friend for places to crash and eat.
She says she started boozing and smoking pot at age 11. To afford to stay high, sometimes she stole. Sometimes she burglarized her own house. A repeat offender, she went to juvenile hall. Finally, a judge told Jessica's father to find a place for her or he would send her to the California Youth Authority facility.
"Nobody felt I deserved that place," she says. As an alternative to CYA, she arrived at the ranch Sept. 4.
"It was hard at first, six girls all put together in one house, but we all get over it. Because I came here straight from juvie, getting used to the routine wasn't hard," Jessica says.
Jessica's parents are divorced, and the split has affected her life. "We don't really act like a family anymore. Mom lives in Georgia, Dad just had a baby with his new woman. I consider Mark and Ginny my closest family," she says.
Although she once she boasted of wildness, now she regrets mistakes.
"I was so incredibly ignorant. Doing drugs was the lamest thing I could have done. If I hadn't been doing drugs, everything would have been different," she says.
Jessica says she has been teased because of her weight most of her life. She didn't have many friends until she was 10. She took drugs to fit in. "I didn't want to lose my friends because that's all I had."
Now she is building bridges with her parents, and feels much closer to her mom than before.
"Once, I was a major Bible thumper, but I started ditching church when I was about 10. I'm enjoying church now," Jessica says.
Being away from her former life has helped her to relax. She doesn't get as irritated with silliness as she once did. "It's been a long time since I've laughed. But I laugh here. Mark and Ginny have showed me a lot of love, and I haven't been around that in a long while either."
TurnaroundsMark considers Kasey, 15, of Huntington Beach, one their biggest successes.
Kasey, who arrived at Gentle Spirit Ranch in late July, had a reputation for rebelliousness.
She was ordered to leave a previous group home for fighting. When her mother picked her up they got into a fight in the parking lot.
"When I came here, I screamed at my Mom, `I hate you for bringing me here,' " Kasey says.
Still she wakes in the middle of the night at times and wonders what she's doing here. "But I know it's better for me here. I'm scared to go home. I'm afraid I'm going to go back to my old ways, drinking and being with boys," Kasey says.
Kasey's mother, Carmine, says, "Gentle Spirit Ranch saved my daughter's life. Without it, she'd be a child of the streets right now."
The downward slide can happen so fast, Carmine warns. A year ago, Kasey was the model child. She came home, did her homework, did dishes, watched her little sister. Then she got into high school, and "we lost her."
The pain in Carmine's voice is evident as she describes trying to keep Kasey home, away from her so-called friends. The screaming matches, the physical confrontations . . . "Kasey would get this glazed look in her eyes, and she was going to do what she wanted, no matter what," Carmine says.
Kasey and Carmine have patched things up. Kasey says, "I would get so mad, I'd get into physical fights with her, cuss her out. But now we're fine. I love her to death," says Kasey, who lives with her mom and stepfather.
Kasey wants to continue schooling at home, on independent study, after she leaves the ranch.
"High school was nothing but problems. I was very boy crazy. I never went to class because I was always with a boy. They overruled my life. Now I have a growing sense of independence."
She intends to go on to college. "I want to be a nurse that takes care of infants. I love kids," Kasey says.
Timing can be everythingLong term, Mark says he'd like to expand the ranch, maybe to accommodate six more girls.
That's the limit, however. "Bigger numbers and you lose that closeness," he says.
It's the love that makes it work, Mark says. "Some people say it's an oversimplified philosophy, but it works really well for us."
Even the Bonacquistas have their failures. "A lot has to do with timing. We try everything we can, but a child may be so addicted to a previous lifestyle, or a boyfriend may have such an emotional pull, that as much as you try, it's not going to happen."
But no matter how resistant a girl is, they won't turn her out. They never give up.
Gordon Johnson can be reached by e-mail at gjohnson@pe.com or by phone at 909-587-3129.cq