The BUILTREADY Ranch training facility at dusk

Strength for generations

Fatherless boys need men who stay.

Scripture calls GOD the Father of the fatherless. He adopted us when we had nothing to offer Him. So we are building a place in Aledo, Texas where men train, feed, and disciple boys with no dad at home, every afternoon, for years.

Become a monthly partner See the method

Who we build for

For boys growing up without a dad.

Some boys come home to an empty chair at the table. No father is there to train them, correct them, or pray over them. We want to be the men who show up for those boys, alongside the families raising them.

Boys in year one

Every boy known by name.

11 to 14

Entry ages

Boys generally join between ages 11 and 14.

7 to 6:30

Every weekday

Free

To every boy

There is no cost to the families we serve.

The Method

Five pillars. One land. One spine.

Each pillar is necessary. None is sufficient. Together, in the same ordinary hours, they form a man.

Boys arrive at 7:00 and go home at 6:30, every weekday.

Hard Work

Real labor with the hands, on the land, for years. A boy who has built and grown and lifted knows the dignity of finishing a job. Idleness is the workshop of his ruin. Hands are the workshop of his character.

Athletics

The body trained the way Scripture trains the soul. Strength, sport, defeat, recovery. A boy learns to lose well, to compete without contempt, and to push his body to the edge of what it can do without complaint.

Nutrition

Real food, grown and prepared together. A boy who knows how a meal is made and shared will not, as a man, feed his family on convenience. The table is its own classroom.

Mentorship

Vetted, present men in the room every day. Proximity, day after day. A boy formed by a man over years becomes a man who knows how to be one. Nothing else accomplishes this.

Faith

Scripture daily. Prayer daily. A working theology of who GOD is and who the boy is before Him. Faith as the deepest answer to the question of his life.

We begin with a smaller training facility that serves up to 25 boys a day while the campus is built. Those boys are trained, mentored, discipled, and fed every day.

Where we stand

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.”

James 1:27, ESV

James does not call caring for the fatherless a part of religion, or evidence of it. He calls it religion in its pure form. In Scripture, fatherlessness is the picture of our condition and adoption is the picture of our rescue. We are simply doing downstream what has already been done for us.

The Curriculum

Five questions. Asked every year.

Alongside the classical academics, every boy walks a formation curriculum written by our pastoral team. He returns to the same five questions each year and goes deeper into each as he grows. By the time he leaves, he has thought hard about the things a man must settle.

Question

How to think about GOD.

Who GOD is, and who the boy is before Him. A son before he is anything else.

Question

How to think about work.

Work as calling. Diligence, craft, and the dignity of a job done well.

Question

How to think about women.

Honor, restraint, and faithfulness. How a man treats, protects, and one day loves a woman.

Question

How to think about money.

Stewardship over accumulation. How to earn, give, save, and stay free of its grip.

Question

How to think about life.

Purpose, suffering, and legacy. How to live deliberately and finish well.

Taught to new depth every year, from age eleven to the day he becomes a man.

Aerial view of the ranch property on Stacy Lane

The promise

Men who stay.

A fatherless boy needs a man who keeps his word. We tell him on day one that we are staying. Then we show up the next day, and the day after that, for years. We are raising boys who will become husbands and fathers who stay.

Strength for generations starts with ordinary days.

Become a monthly partner.

What keeps a place like this open is ordinary people who give every month and do not quit. $5, $10, or $100 a month. Every boy pays nothing.

Give monthly