Kendra Scott’s Exclusive Line of Jewelry Benefitting The Refuge

Kendra Scott’s new Masie Statement Necklace and Earrings launched today, and 20% of proceeds benefit The Refuge Ranch! These pieces are an exclusive line in the Kendra Scott Shop for Good giveback suite, which “helps women and children live their brightest, healthiest, and most empowered lives.”

From the very beginning, Kendra Scott has been an ardent supporter of our work at The Refuge Ranch. Before we welcomed the first girl at The Refuge Ranch, Kendra Scott supplied the cottages with creature comforts including yoga mats, nail polish, and picture frames to help make the ranch feel like home.

Since then, Kendra Scott has continuously stepped in to bolster our mission through sponsoring events, donating jewelry for the girls and for staff appreciation, and through financial contributions.

In the fall of 2019, the Kendra Scott design team led a Makers Class onsite at The Refuge Ranch. They walked the girls through the design process from inspiration to final product, and then the girls made their own original pieces.

Inspired by the colorful crafts made by the girls in our care, as well as the therapeutic, calming effect of intricate weaving and beading, the design team at Kendra Scott created an exclusive jewelry line benefitting The Refuge Ranch. The Masie suite brings together a rainbow of playful paracord and Kendra Scott’s iconic custom stones. The Masie Statement Necklace and Earrings are limited to 150 pieces each and 20% of proceeds benefit The Refuge for DMST™.

“The opportunity to not only spend time with the residents of The Refuge Ranch, but also design these styles that give back to their organization, represents one of the many things I love most about this brand: using our passions to support the communities we call home.” – Kendra Scott

Thank you, Kendra, for your endless support of the girls in our care!

Supporter Spotlight: Our Amazing Church Community

From the beginning, the Central Texas church community has extended love and enduring support to The Refuge for DMST™, and we would not be the organization we are today without our wonderful church partners.

The following are just a few recent examples of the way so many churches in the area have encircled us with support in much the same way we encircle the girls in our care. Through the provision of financial resources, prayer, volunteers, and sharing our mission of hope and healing, these churches have been essential to our success in providing the very best care to child survivors of sex trafficking.

Bannockburn Baptist Church

Bannockburn Church has been in our corner since 2018. Over the last three years, they have showered our organization in endless prayers, shared about our mission consistently with their congregation, invited us to speaking opportunities, and donated everything from quilts and Christmas décor to feminine products and first aid kits.

Bethany Lutheran MOPS

The Mothers of Preschoolers group at Bethany Lutheran Church in Austin has also supported us for over three years. They have consistently donated clothing and needed items from our collections drive page and they were the first group to host a Dove Tile Project painting party back in 2018.

Last month, they collected and bundled 15 beautiful baskets full of summer items. The towels, swimsuits, sunscreen, sandals, and water activities were used by the girls right away, as they participate in CAMP LIVE, our summer programming at The Refuge Ranch. Thank you for helping us make this a wonderful summer for the girls in our care!

Most recently, they hosted a collection drive for our spring cleaning needs at The Refuge Ranch. Over the month of May, their congregation collected over  $1,500 in paper goods, trash bags, laundry detergent, and more. Thank you for coordinating this wonderful drive!

St. Luke’s on the Lake Episcopal Church

Our first meeting with St. Lukes's on the Lake Episcopal Church was a Zoom meeting last year with their Daughters of the King group. Right away, the women we met with were eager to begin a collections drive and to partner with us long-term.

They hosted a month-long collection drive at their church and gathered needed items, including cleaning supplies, vitamins, clothes, and Nike running shoes that we know the girls will be excited to see in The Boutique at The Refuge Ranch.

Thank you to these amazing churches and our many other church partners for helping us make The Refuge Ranch a place of hope and healing for the girls in our care!

Supporter Spotlight: Thank You to These Supporters

We are so encouraged by the many individuals and businesses who go the extra mile to support The Refuge. Here’s a roundup of a few of the organizations that have partnered with us recently.

I Support the Girls

I Support the Girls is an organization that collects and distributes essential items for women experiencing homelessness or distress. We first connected with them over a year ago and received a generous donation of bras for the girls in our care. Last month, they came to us with another donation, this time of 300 bras, 200 pairs of underwear, thousands of menstrual products, as well as makeup and masks. These essential products will go so far in our care of girls recovering at The Refuge Ranch.

Town Lake Chapter of The Links, Inc.

The Links, Inc. is an international service organization that focuses on empowering African American youth and communities. We’ve had a long and deep relationship with The Links, and recently the Town Lake Chapter of The Links partnered with us to donate items listed on our In-Kind Needs page. Members of the chapter donated beauty supplies, cleaning supplies, home goods, and printers. We are so grateful for their enthusiasm and support of our mission!

DISCO Cares

DISCO Cares, the philanthropic arm of the technology company DISCO, organized a curbside technology event to give laptops to several of their non-profit partners, including SAFE Alliance, Code2College, Austin Urban Technology Movement, and The Refuge. During the event, staff got to share with DISCO staff and the other non-profits present about our mission of hope and healing at The Refuge.

DISCO Cares donated 10 laptops to The Refuge that will help our team out at the ranch. We are so grateful to be included in this group of incredible local non-profit partners!

If these stories of generosity inspired you to partner further with The Refuge, fill out our Join a Team survey to receive email updates on current needs and opportunities specific to your interests.

Mother's Day Gift Guide

Support The Refuge with These gifts for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is around the corner! If you’re looking for a gift for a mom figure in your life, consider shopping from one of these incredible organizations that support our mission of hope and healing at The Refuge.

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Kelly Wynne

Kelly Wynne is an Austin-based lifestyle brand specializing in quality handbags and accessories. Founder Kelly Wynne Ferguson is an enthusiastic supporter of our mission at The Refuge. Through their Dare to Donate program, Kelly Wynne donates a portion of every handbag sold to sponsor a scholarship for a girl at The Refuge Ranch. Additionally, every girl who graduates from our program at The Refuge receives a handbag from Kelly Wynne to carry into her new life.

Enter code REFUGERANCH at checkout and $5 of the purchase will go back to The Refuge!

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Shop Darling

Shop Darling is a family-owned small business that shares messages of encouragement through cozy clothing. The clothing line is an extension of founder Jessi Afshin’s My Darling Diary, a platform for sharing scripture and encouragement on Instagram. Shop Darling financially supports our mission at The Refuge and donates sweatshirts and accessories to The Boutique at The Refuge Ranch, so the girls can pick out their own items of comfort and inspiration.

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The Cultured Carrot

The Cultured Carrot was founded by two Austin moms who wanted to find a way to incorporate the health benefits of fermentation into their families’ plates daily. The Cultured Carrot’s line of fermented dressings are perfect for salads, marinades, and sauces. The business just launched in March, and you can shop their dressings online or at the Mueller Farmer’s Market on Sunday afternoons. We are grateful they chose our organization to partner with for community giving.

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The Refuge Store

You can also support our mission directly by shopping from our store. Each hat, sweatshirt, and mug makes a great conversation starter for helping to share our mission of hope and healing!

Supporter Spotlight: Students Making a Difference

Lately, we have been inspired by many young supporters who feel a deep passion for our mission and have found creative ways to serve the girls in our care. Here are a few stories of students who have gone above and beyond to serve girls living at The Refuge Ranch!

Eagle Scout Builds Benches for The Refuge

Eagle Scout Coley Cowden recently built settles—benches that easily convert into picnic tables—for The Refuge Ranch as part of his Eagle Scout Service project. In his classes at Regents School of Austin, Coley and his classmates learned about settles while studying the pioneers, and Coley had seen the practical piece of furniture in action at the nature sanctuary where he often goes for school activities and scout meetings. He thought they would be a wonderful way for girls to be able to enjoy outdoor spaces all over the fifty-acre Refuge Ranch.

After Coley contacted us with the idea, he drafted plans, sought approval from his scoutmaster, started fundraising for the project, and rallied fellow scouts to assist with building and welding. He painted the settles bright turquoise to match the Adirondak chairs that sit on our cottage porches, built and donated by Girl Scout Liliana Mechura in 2018 for her Silver Award project.

Through his fundraising, Coley was able to provide us with six beautiful settles as well as a generous monetary donation. We are grateful to Coley and his parents, Heidi and Duke, for their commitment to supporting The Refuge!

Legacy Church Student Ministry

The Legacy Church Student Ministry recently donated bundles of towels, Tupperware, hangers, and laundry detergent for the cottages at The Refuge Ranch. “Instead of just hearing or learning about this, I’m actually able to do something by giving things to the girls,” said one of the students who helped drop off donations.

The Legacy Church Student Ministry, made up of 6th through 12th grade students, has faithfully supported our mission for a few years through painting Dove Tiles and praying often for the girls in our care.

Last year, they donated eleven pairs of riding boots for the Equine program at The Refuge. They raised the money for the boots through their student-run drink and snack shop for their Tuesday night gatherings. Every month, the profit from selling drinks and snacks to fellow students goes to the organizations their ministry supports. Last February, they decided to designate the funds to purchase a specific item from our In-Kind Needs list, and the students settled on riding boots. They were so eager to support our Equine program, that they ended up raising four times their monthly average, allowing them to purchase eleven brand new pairs of boots for girls at The Refuge Ranch!

Thank you to the staff and volunteers at Legacy Church, including Reyn Harpole and Jamie Lynn, for helping foster a passion for our mission among your students. We are grateful for your sustained support over the years!

Regents Students Organize Collection Drive

A class of 10th graders from Regents School of Austin recently organized a socially distanced collection drive in the school’s Travis County neighborhood. They stapled information about The Refuge to paper bags, with lists of our needed items and instructions on when they would pick up donations from front porches, and distributed them throughout the neighborhood.

On Monday, the students ventured back out to collect the donations and gathered enough cleaning supplies and paper products to fill a large truck and two SUVs. The students estimated that they walked over four miles around the neighborhood collecting the bags of goods. They listened raptly as one of our staff members spoke about our work at The Refuge and the opportunity we have to help girls their own age find independence and reclaim their lives.

We were fortunate to have volunteers from The Lakeway Church present to help us pick up and deliver these donations to The Refuge Ranch. A special thank you to Amy Lauer and Jennifer Dierking for helping coordinate this drive.

Thank you to all of these students for going the extra mile—or four—to serve the girls in our care. It is encouraging to see how you are stirred to action to serve your peers. Our work would not be possible without your passion and prayers!

Supporter Spotlight: We are grateful for these supporters!

The generosity and creativity of our community are unparalleled, and we want to spotlight a few of the incredible supporters who bless our organization!

Birthday Fun Run Fundraiser

Two months before her birthday, Austin resident Grace Salas sent us an email to tell us she wanted to support our mission through a virtual fun run. Though she had never planned a fundraiser before, she was struck by our mission to bring hope and healing to survivors of sex trafficking and wanted to use her birthday as a way to champion our cause among her friends and family.

Grace created an event sign-up page, designed t-shirts, and asked her community to join her, and on December 19th over 50 people participated in her socially-distanced, virtual Run for The Refuge, raising over $3,000.

Thank you, Grace, for not only using your passion to fundraise, but also for spreading the word about our mission to all of your friends and family. Through your bold action, you mobilized 50 new advocates for The Refuge!

Bannockburn Church Collection Drive

In late October, we started preparing for new arrivals at The Refuge Ranch by asking for home goods needed for the bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens in our cottages. Bannockburn Church, one of our wonderful church partners, heard about our Stock Our Cottages initiative and called on their congregation to start collecting bundles of needed items. Together, they collected over $4,000 worth of bedding, towels, pillows, home décor, paper towels and other items needed to warmly welcome new girls to The Refuge Ranch.

Bannockburn Church has supported us since before we opened in 2018. Over the years, they have covered our organization in endless prayers, donations, quilts, and more. We are so grateful for their sustained support.

Foster Angels partnership

Foster Angels of Central Texas is a nonprofit organization that ensures children in foster care have their basic needs met and have opportunities to thrive. For every girl in the care of social services who comes to The Refuge Ranch, Foster Angels provides us with gift cards to meet some of their immediate needs.

We use these gift cards to supply Welcome Kits to new arrivals, including a backpack, journal, desk calendar, bathrobe, laundry basket, night light, and mp3 player for self-regulation. Providing these simple items helps each girl feel established in her new environment.

It is a joy to work with Foster Angels because they are quick to act when we have a need, and they remember us when they have more to give. In September, Foster Angels reached out to us to let us know they had a surplus of new shoes that needed a home. They donated 40 pairs of shoes to our boutique, and many of the girls were thrilled to receive a pair of on-trend slide sandals. We are grateful to work with an organization that is so proactive in using its resources to meet needs, big and small.

We are endlessly thankful for the generosity and initiative demonstrated by each of these supporters. As we always say, The Refuge Ranch was built by community, and it will be sustained by community. Thank you for being active members of our community!

If these stories of generosity inspired you to partner further with The Refuge, fill out our Join a Team survey to receive email updates on current needs and opportunities.

Christmas Festivities at The Refuge Ranch

This week, we are celebrating our third Christmas at The Refuge Ranch! We feel so blessed by the community that helps us to provide the girls with a Christmas they will cherish forever. Through your generous donations, we have been able to decorate the ranch, give wonderful gifts to the girls, and fill the time off from school with fun activities.

All of the cottages at The Refuge Ranch are decorated with trees and ornaments from Girls Energized to Make a Difference.

Amy Younkman of Brunch Babes delivering handmade stockings

We know that the holidays are challenging for many, including the residents in our care, and it is through your support that we are able to help the girls feel at home during the holiday season.

Christmas festivities began a few weeks ago when the girls decorated each cottage at the ranch with Christmas trees and ornaments provided by Girls Energized to Make a Difference, a service organization made up of Westlake High School students. These Christmas trees and ornaments will be cherished at the ranch for years to come! Handmade stockings filled with goodies were provided by Brunch Babes, who provide beautiful gift sets for the girls every holiday.

Two weeks ago, Santa made a surprise visit to The Refuge Ranch! Though the girls are old enough to figure out that Santa was really our Director of Human Resources, they certainly got a kick out of Newton, our favorite therapy horse turned Instagram-influencer, joining in on the fun as a stand-in reindeer.

Santa and his new reindeer, Newton!

A winter village of gingerbread houses.

Winter Break officially kicked off last Friday, and there has been a flurry of Christmas crafting at The Refuge Ranch since, including sweater, ornament, gingerbread house and cookie decorating. Thank you to Flourish and the Austin chapter of Beta Sigma Phi for providing an endless supply of crafts and fun activities that have helped build excitement for Christmas Day!

Thank you to the many other organizations and individuals who have helped us prepare for Christmas at The Refuge Ranch—to Marjie Walters and the Quintos Family for donating matching pajamas for the girls to wear on Christmas Eve, to Trihn Pham for providing beauty supply kits for the girls, to Johnnie Harris and friends for donating gift cards that helped us decorate every inch of the ranch and provide meals for our staff working over the holiday, to Courtney Thomas for providing gift baskets for the girls and for our wonderful staff, to volunteers from The Lakeway Church who helped us shuttle seven SUV’s full of donations out to the ranch and to the countless others whose support makes our work possible year-round.

And finally, a big thank you to Erskine & Blackburn for providing the girls with items from their personal wish lists for the third year in a row. We cannot wait to see the joy on the girls’ faces when they open their presents on Christmas morning.

We are so grateful for the many blessings you have given us this year. Merry Christmas!

Flourish dropping off Christmas crafts at our Austin office.

Beta Sigma Phi donating $2,893 worth of in-kind and cash donations.

Volunteers from The Lakeway Church shuttling items to The Refuge Ranch.

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Have you seen our Christmas Special? This time last year, a team of thirty-five angels moved Heaven and literal Earth and accomplished a miracle the day before Christmas. Please watch and share!

A Christmas Miracle at The Refuge Ranch!

We all love a good Christmas miracle story. This time last year, a team of thirty-five angels moved Heaven and literal Earth and accomplished a miracle the day before Christmas. Please watch our Christmas Special and share it with your friends!

On behalf of the girls in our care, our staff and our Board of Directors, we hope that the most wonderful time of the year, is truly the most wonderful Christmas ever for you and your family.

Thanks to your support, we will be celebrating our third Christmas at The Refuge Ranch, the largest long-term, live-in rehabilitation facility for child survivors of sex trafficking in the United States.

We are so grateful for your continued support, especially since this has been a challenging year for everyone.

Thanks to the many kind souls who remember us in their year-end giving, The Refuge Ranch, a place of rest and restoration, a place of hope and healing, will continue to celebrate many more Christmases.

We’re looking forward to seeing what happens next during the most wonderful time of the year.

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Read our blog post on Eight Days of Hope and the power of community here.

Supporter Spotlight: We can't thank these supporters enough

We have been so encouraged by the many individuals and businesses who have gone the extra mile to support The Refuge during this turbulent year. Here are a few stories of the creative supporters who bless our organization!

Austin Salons Collecting Items from The List

In the last few months, two local salon owners have partnered with us to collect items from The List, our regularly updated wish list of items needed for survivors recovering at The Refuge Ranch.

Keri Bryant put up a blue and white Christmas tree in the lobby of her lash salon for customers to drop off items from The List. On top of collecting much-needed items, she also sold our Dove Tile Kits to customers who wanted another fun way to get involved! 

Ashley Whitfield and her team at Aloe Skin + Body set up a donation drop box in their lobby to collect items from The List. They have also donated a percentage of their gift card sales to The Refuge and painted Dove Tiles together as a team!

We are so grateful for the ways both salons have shared our mission of hope and healing to their customers, and for the ways they have helped us reach more of the Central Texas community.

UT Student Raises $3,000 for The Refuge 

Grace Besly, a freshman at The University of Texas at Austin, contacted us in September with the idea to turn an assignment from her Communications and Leadership class into a fundraiser for The Refuge. Through advocating for The Refuge on social media and selling t-shirt, Grace raised $3,000 in 2 months. Thank you, Grace, for using your school assignment to make a difference in the lives of trafficking survivors!

Moreland Properties 

The team at Moreland Properties collected and delivered five bedroom and bathroom bundles that will help us welcome new girls arriving at The Refuge Ranch this year. They came to one of our collections drive days with cars packed to the ceiling with bedding, towels, and home décor collected by 15 people. It was encouraging to see their team excitedly working together to help provide much comfort for the girls.

Emily Moreland, owner of Moreland Properties, has been a consistent supporter of The Refuge since before we opened in 2018. As part of our Support Team, she receives monthly emails with hands-on, Austin-based opportunities to support The Refuge, including our most urgent collections drive needs. Through that email, she learned about the Stock Our Cottages campaign and was inspired to mobilize her team.

There are many more stories we could tell of the creative ways you support our mission of hope and healing—in fact, keep an eye on this blog for more to come! As we always say, The Refuge Ranch was built by community, and it will be sustained by community. Thank you for being part of our community. 

If these stories of generosity inspired you to partner further with The Refuge, fill out our Join a Team survey to receive email updates on current needs and opportunities specific to your interests.

Halloween at The Refuge Ranch

We had a full weekend of Halloween fun out at The Refuge Ranch! The festivities kicked off after school on Thursday with a Trunk or Treat. Staff dressed up and decorated their vehicles to pass out candy and other snacks to the girls. For a chance to elicit big smiles from the girls, staff members went all out with their decorations.

On Thursday night, the middle aisle in The Chapel was transformed into a runway for a Halloween Pageant. The girls donned their costumes to walk down the runway and participate in a talent competition.

On Friday night, the girls painted pumpkins with their cottage mates and House Parents to put on their front porch.

On Saturday, the girls played Halloween games in the morning, baked cookies in the afternoon, and watched a Halloween movie in the evening.

Thank you Brunch Babes, OUR Austin, and Sisterhood Story for your generous donations that helped make the Halloween festivities a hit with the girls at The Refuge Ranch. Through your support, every girl got to pick out her own costume to wear during Trunk or Treat and our Halloween Pageant. From inflatable penguins to Marvel superheroes, each girl’s costume reflected her unique personality.

Thank you to our sponsors!

We are so grateful to our sponsors who helped make Circle of Hope: A Special Tour of The Refuge Ranch a success. Our online tour of the 23-building, 50-acre labor of love known as The Refuge Ranch was not just a fundraising event—it was an opportunity to introduce many people, whether brand new or long-time supporters, to the intricacies of our mission.

Thank you to our sponsors for making this first-ever tour possible. By partnering with us for this event, you have helped stir many more hearts for our mission of hope and healing. It is through your support that we are able to offer rest and restoration to child survivors of sex trafficking.

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2020 Circle of Hope Hummingbird Sponsors

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The Power of Community: Eight Days of Hope

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Like The Refuge for DMST, the nonprofit Eight Days of Hope arose from an overwhelming community need that was met with countervailing community support. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, a call went out over American Family Radio’s 180 stations, asking for retired construction workers to come help rebuild the city. Thousands of men and women responded and Eight Days of Hope was born. Since then, Eight Days of Hope volunteers have responded to natural disasters all over the country. Right before Christmas 2019, an army of volunteers came to The Refuge Ranch to complete the Equine Therapy Center, our last major construction project on site. Their experienced team completed the work in just eleven days! (Video coming soon.)

How does a national volunteer organization that concentrates on disaster relief and rapid response end up building a large arena, round pen, six stables, a tack room and hay loft, an office for the Equine Program Coordinator, along with an adjacent classroom to augment therapy?

“Human trafficking is human disaster,” says Eight Days of Hope founder Steve Tybor, “and the need is huge.”

In response, Eight Days of Hope launched a Safe House Ministry to build safe places for trafficking survivors. Steve and his army of volunteers intend to “build a safe house every month,” says Steve, “until God tells me to stop.”

Thankfully for us this includes equine therapy centers in long-term residential treatment centers! We’re hoping we get to work more with Eight Days of Hope in the near future.

EQUINE THERAPY FOR CHILD SURVIVORS OF SEX TRAFFICKING

The seven components of The Refuge Circle of Care™ appropriately and sensitively surround each girl with all the services she needs for her individualized healing plan. As part of the psychological component of The Refuge Circle of Care, equine therapy (also referred to as horse therapy, equine-assisted therapy, and equine-assisted psychotherapy) is a form of experiential therapy that involves interactions between clients and horses. Through these interactions, therapists and survivors can identify and address a range of emotional and behavioral challenges.

As a herd animal, a horse’s survival depends on its ability to read emotions and react accordingly. If an approaching predator makes one member of their herd stressed and frightened, they will all become stressed and frightened. Their ability to mirror emotions helps a trafficking survivor safely process her trauma one layer at a time with the guidance of her licensed clinical therapist and an Equine Program Coordinator.

Equine therapy exercises begin slowly, starting on the ground and progressing over the course of the program to riding exercises. While interacting with a horse, in the moment when a survivor is scared, she can work through her fear with her counselors. When she feels safe and there is trust, then she can calm herself and breathe through her anxiety. When similar fears arise later, the methods she learned in the controlled environment of the Equine Therapy Center round pen and arena can be applied in everyday situations to help her self-regulate and overcome her fear.

The size and strength of a horse is formidable and hard to ignore. How each child behaves toward her horse is a direct reflection of how she faces her own seemingly insurmountable trauma. Trafficked children are often frozen in a hyper-vigilant, fight-or-flight survivor mode that stresses their bodies and inhibits brain development. Through mundane horse care and stable management, children who have endured long-term, complex trauma learn to relax and flourish. While working with horses, a child can work through her triggers in real time. These realizations can lead to therapeutic breakthroughs when guided by her counselors. The horses at The Refuge Ranch act as a bridge, helping each girl reconnect both to themselves and those around them.