Sonora, California

Mission 

MDC Ranch provides youth and adults with special needs a safe, supportive, and educational experience that will help them contribute positively to their community throughout their lives.

The Program

Our ranch environment is an off-site teaching facility for youth mentoring and vocational training. With demand for this type of off-site program, in 2009 we made Vocational Training an “official” MDC focus, and it has become our fastest growing curriculum.

We currently partner with the Sonora High School California Workability 1, Transition and Community Compass programs, with a total of over 250 students ranging in age from 16 to 22 years. These are at-risk teens and young adults in the Special Education programs striving to learn on-the-job skills through ranch management experience. Our volunteer mentors assist these students and target their specific interests on a one-on-one basis. We also provide general guidance in many subjects including office management, computer skills, animal care, gardening, carpentry, painting, crafts, and sewing. Students are required to follow directions, ask appropriate questions, and communicate in a healthy way with peers and adults. They utilize their skills in a real-world setting by helping to prepare for and assist at our fundraising events. Throughout it all, we encourage our youth participants to discover their passions, set healthy priorities, work hard, learn from mistakes, overcome fear, and to reach for what might seem beyond their grasp.

We help our students make positive personal choices for both body and mind. Vocational Training students use our ranch to practice job skills, learn and practice positive life skills, and often discover a particular area of interest to pursue for future employment. Some of our students have gotten their first job while with us, or as a result of what they have learned at MDC.  For all of them, development of life and job skills is imperative if they are to prosper as healthy, productive, contributing members of our society.

Mounted Dream Center has gained a solid reputation for successfully matching youth with MDC volunteer mentors to help meet the goals and objectives of organizations requesting our services.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” 
Benjamin Franklin