Today we’d like to introduce you to Aubrey Schlackman.
Hi Aubrey, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In January of 2020, my husband and I felt called to start a nonprofit ministry to single pregnant mothers with children through a safe place to live like a maternity ranch. We knew this was a huge goal to obtain, so with a lot of help from nonprofit and ministry consultants, we spent all of 2020 creating a plan to build up our nonprofit through phases of growth. We started in our home, offering weekly support group meetings and meals. And then providing each mom with a baby shower and 2 months paid maternity leave so they could have a chance to be at home with their families before having to get back to work.
We took our first pregnant mother-led family in January of 2021, and by April we had 4 families in our care. People caught on to what we were doing quickly, and so we were able to gain the funding rather quickly to move to phase 2 of our growth, which was to be able to add paying for their apartments/rent home each month as well as childcare and some utilities.
We added our 5th family in November of 2021, and this was our first family added that was directly affected by the new heartbeat bill that had come into effect in September.
We continued to provide housing, childcare, and utilities for all of our families, in addition to helping with education and job training opportunities.
We continued to grow and added more families in 2022.
We have been in search of our someday permanent home for the maternity ranch by look for land outside the DFW metropolitan area in the Northwest quadrant.
We offer a long-term program through pregnancy and then up to 18 months postpartum for each of our families in our care.
Here in 2023, we graduated our first 4 families. We still have 6 families in our care, totaling 27 people for the moms and their children.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, haha, a lot of learning curves. My husband is a chiropractor, and I was a dental hygienist and then a stay-at-home mom, so no professional education in starting or running a nonprofit. But we have constantly sought counsel from others with experience and brought in amazing teams of volunteers to help us grow.
We learned a lot from our first group of moms that started with us and had some great times and also learned a lot of hard lessons alongside them. It wasn’t as smooth as we wanted for them along the way, but I’m still thankful we had the opportunity to walk along beside them for those 2 years. And we learned a lot we can improve on in our care, and we are taking steps to improve those things now.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
When we began looking around the DFW metroplex at other nonprofits doing similar ministries with housing, we began to notice the gap of care to single pregnant mothers who already had kids and were facing another pregnancy alone for whatever reason.
So we decided to specifically serve this demographic only so that we could hold space for them in our nonprofit and tailor our program for that season of their life. So everything we focus on is helping them to have a healthy pregnancy while still working, giving them two months of paid maternity leave, and then coming back from maternity leave, help them to gain a new plan for work or education over the next 18 months so they can work towards being able to be independent when they leave.
And that goal for us to help them achieve that independence is multifaceted, we want them to have built a strong community around themselves and a new mentality that they are worthy of God’s love and forgiveness and to love themselves as well, alongside working to equip them with financial stability.
When you are working to save a life of a baby, it means you have to step into the mom’s life and help her make huge changes to save her own life as well. To give her a hand up to build the life she dreams of giving herself and her children. It’s hard, heartbreaking work; but if the mom is willing to work hard for her family, then we want to be there right beside her.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
I love the Risen Motherhood podcast; it’s short and encouraging as a mother myself but also helps me stay focused on how I want to help and encourage these other moms that we support.
Pricing:
- $100 a month helps support an electric bill for one family
- $150 a month covers counseling for a mom that month
- $5,000 a month covers one family for rent, childcare for all her children, and utilities.
- $1,000 a month covers groceries and eating out for a mom and her family with their new baby on maternity leave.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Bluehavenranch.Org
- Instagram: @blue.haven.ranch
- Facebook: @bluehavenranch
