About The Ranch

Breaking Cycles. Building Leaders. Transforming Communities.

Founded in 2001, Wildwood Hills Ranch is a 400-acre leadership-development organization located just south of West Des Moines in Saint Charles, Iowa.

We serve vulnerable youth, veterans, and their families through transformational relationships, leadership development, educational programming, job and life-skills training, and equine-based experiences.

Our programs are research-backed, outcomes-driven, and provided at no cost to participants or their families through the generosity of donors and mission-supporting revenue generated at the Ranch.

We’re In It for the Long Haul

Lasting transformation takes time.

That’s why Wildwood makes a 10-year commitment to the young people we serve, walking alongside them from approximately age eight through eighteen.

As students grow, our programming grows with them. Through leadership development, practical job skills, mentoring, and our Next Steps Program, we help young people prepare for adulthood with the relationships, confidence, skills, and direction they need to move forward.

We bring that same commitment to veterans and their families by creating trusted relationships and experiences that foster healing, strengthen families, rebuild purpose, and create lasting connection.

Our Vision

Ending Child Abuse and Veteran Suicide.

It’s an ambitious vision, and we know lasting change doesn’t happen through programs alone.

It happens through people.

Through relationships.

Through communities willing to show up and stay.

That’s why everything we do at Wildwood comes back to our mission: