Help Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch Survivors find community and healing by funding this special event

Help Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch Survivors find community and healing by funding this special event
Post Date August 01, 2018
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For more than 50 years, the disadvantaged children under the care of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch suffered severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. The Child-Friendly Faith Project is organizing a reunion for survivors and their loved ones so they can find community, support and healing.

The reunion, which will take place on Aug. 31, in Amarillo, Texas, will offer survivors a chance to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones. Many need our help paying for travel and accommodation expenses. To make sure all survivors have emotional support, the CFFP has arranged for a local therapist who specializes in childhood trauma to be on call.

Yes, I want to help Boys Ranch survivors!

Boys Ranch, as most people call it, is a privately funded facility begun in 1939 by Cal Farley, a professional wrestler and tire salesman who had no training in child development. Since then, the institution (which currently has a budget of $48 million) has sought donations from the community by marketing itself as a place that meets children’s needs.

What really was going on was ongoing, systemic, and severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. To make matters worse, last year, Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch dedicated a dorm building to Lamont Waldrip, a man who many survivors say brutally beat children and oversaw the abusive system as superintendent for many years until he retired in 1997. Read More »

Will Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch help those it traumatized as children?

Will Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch help those it traumatized as children?
Post Date June 16, 2018
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Boys Ranch has a program that provides assistance to alumni. But it’s not working well for those who were abused while growing up there.

 

It’s been six months since the news broke that Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch was not the place it purported itself to be.

The nearly 80-year-old institution has long claimed that it does a great job caring for children. It portrays its founder, professional wrestler Cal Farley, as a man who was forward-thinking and compassionate toward children. The privately funded, residential facility—whose 2016-17 annual report shows revenues exceeding $48 million—takes in children often left by parents who can’t or don’t want to care for them.

According to Boys Ranch’s website, “We hold true to the values set over seven decades, and still we prepare young people to become responsible citizens.”

But last December, an article that appeared in The Guardian made public that such “preparation” often included extreme physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that spanned 40 years or more. Boys Ranch admitted that the abuses had, indeed, taken place and offered a weak apology.

It’s unclear how many children were victimized. According to Boys Ranch, about 12,000 young people have lived at the campus in its 78-year history. A Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch Survivors Facebook group that was made public a year ago has grown to 75 members. Read More »

Looking Forward: A Message from CFFP President Jaime Romo

Looking Forward: A Message from CFFP President Jaime Romo
Post Date January 01, 2018
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It’s about time we begin to turn the world around
It’s about time we start to make it the dream we’ve always known
It’s about time we start to live the family of man
It’s about time, it’s about changes and it’s about time
It’s about peace and it’s about plenty and it’s about time
It’s about you and me together and it’s about time

 

As we look forward to 2018 and our continued efforts to fulfill our mission, these lyrics from a 1983 John Denver song ring true today. It’s about time to not only name abuses that happen when people misuse religious authority, but to gather our voices, our vision, and our shared strengths to transform the practices of maltreatment of vulnerable individuals, particularly children.

The Child-Friendly Faith Project began with a clear vision to educate and raise awareness of religious child maltreatment or RCM. Over the years, we have organized conferences, developed educational resources, and have been called on to support survivors. As we have grown, we have lent support to change legislation in Idaho that protected child medical neglect under the guise of “religious freedom.” And we have had the privilege of supporting those who grew up in, and were abused at, Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Read More »

Advocating for Survivors of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch

Advocating for Survivors of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch
Post Date December 21, 2017
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“A sense of safety is vital to a child’s ability to reach his or her full potential.”

— Website of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch

 

 

The Child-Friendly Faith Project has been advocating for men who grew up at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch from the 1960s through the 1990s. The privately funded, residential facility is located outside of Amarillo and houses boys whose parents or guardians can’t, or won’t, take care of them.

The men, as child residents at Cal Farley’s, suffered ongoing physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. After leaving the ranch, many men lack skills needed to find work. They have struggled with addiction or gotten into trouble with the law. Others have committed suicide. Read More »