Sheila Vilvens

svilvens@enquirer.com

When the Community Savings Bank in Bethel recently foreclosed on a 15-acre horse farm on the edge of town, it didn’t put the property on the market to recoup its losses.

Instead, the bank gifted the property, valued at about $150,000, to Empower Youth – a group formed in February of 2015, with a focus on giving youth a future regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances. Students in Bethel Schools, Amelia, Grant Career Center and Fayetteville-Perry are all in Empower Youth’s service area – which continues to grow.

“What they do and the passion they have to do it with just impressed us,” said Community Savings Bank CEO John Essen of Delhi Township.

The gift is just a start. The property needs a lot of work, he said. They will need as many people as possible to get involved. Donated labor and materials will be helpful. The opportunities the property provides Empower Youth are limitless, Essen said.

“We could be a gateway to the reducing poverty issue not only in Bethel but in the entire Southwest area. We’re not just feeding people. We’re really trying to change lives,” he said. The Bethel area has a 38 percent poverty rate, he said.

In Clermont County, with a population of just over 203,000, there are about 15,000 residents served by the food assistance program SNAP and 40,000 on Medicaid, according to Shonya Agin, assistant director of public assistance for Clermont County Job and Family Services.

The focus of Empower Youth is to break the chain of generational poverty, Essen said.

On a recent sunny day, Scott Conley, one of the Empower Youth founders, and a group of equine and steel fabricating students from Grant Career Center were at the farm working. Among the students was Makaykla Ragland, a senior in Grant’s equine science program and a member of Empower Youth’s Board of Directors.

To her, the gift is an opportunity to transform not only Empower Youth but the community. The biggest thing Empower Youth does is build relationships, she said.

“A lot of kids, they don’t have anyone. So, it’s nice to come here and have a mentor,” Ragland said. She includes herself among the students who have benefited from Empower Youth.

The farm will enable the group to not only empower youth, but it’s huge for the community, she said.

“This is going to be the place where the community restores its broken pieces. Kids are going to be able to come here and feel safe and feel loved,” Ragland said.

“The bank has given us so much legitimacy by giving us this property,” Conley said. He and his wife, Lori, reside in Batavia and are the founders of Empower Youth. Lori Conley is the youth minister at Community Christian Church in Bethel.

“When we got it, it was so overwhelming. There was so much work to do,” Scott Conley said. “Then it came down to the first priority to do.”

The need that rose to the top was the Weekend Food Bags. The nonprofit provides nearly 400 children with these bags weekly. Empower Youth rents for $350 per month the kitchen of Red Barn in Batavia to assemble the bags.

To eliminate this expense, the first major task is the transformation of a large garage into the packing facility, Conley said. Donors are coming through with labor and supplies to make this happen. Lowes, Sardinia Concrete, Grant Career Center are all helping, he said. Donations of packing tables and shelving are promised.

The building will be named in memory of Peachie Glassmeyer who recently lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. A student advocate at Grant Career Academy, Glassmeyer made it her mission to encourage the juniors and seniors at her school to take home weekend bags if they were food insecure. That’s not an easy sale, Conley said. She helped to grow the relationship between Grant schools, students and Empower Youth.

As for the remaining buildings, house and property – many ideas are being discussed.

For example, a large warehouse type building on the property could be transformed into a meeting hall, Conley said. Groups like 4-H, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and others could hold their meetings there. The Girl Scouts and Daisy Scouts could do gardening projects on the land.

The horse barn on the property was built in 2010 and has 22 stalls. There are 4-H students who can’t do sheep or goat projects because they lack the proper space, he said. Perhaps the stalls could be used by them to do such projects.

“It would be a great place for sheep and goats,” he said. “There’s no place for horses now, the fence is in bad shape.”

These are just ideas.

“We’re still exploring options,” Conley added.

As for the remaining buildings, house and property – many ideas are being discussed.

“We’re still exploring options,” Conley added.

There’s a lot of tear down work to be done, clean up and remodeling. More help is needed. Some immediate needs include a tractor with a front loader, roof for the ranch manager home, and equipment to level dirt on the property for drainage.

Empower Youth has a budget of just under $80,000 for its various projects which include: Dream Big, Party in the Park, Empower Youth Camp at Woodland Lakes Camp in Amelia, and the Weekend Food Packs. Between 1,200 to 1,400 pounds of food is packaged and provided to nearly 400 students from Bethel-Tate, Grant Career Academy, Amelia Elementary, and the Fayetteville-Perry Schools.

These programs and others are made possible through donations and various community partnerships. For the young nonprofit, existence is very week-to-week.

Like her husband, Lori Conley is overwhelmed by the bank’s generosity, the generosity of the community and how far Empower Youth has come in just two years. Empower Youth is not about her and her husband, she emphasized. This is a community initiative and effort focused on breaking the cycle of generational poverty.

Nearly every adult and student who comes out to the new piece of property is finding a project that they can “sink their teeth into,” Conley said.

“The ranch is forming leaders with every nail driven and every piece of fence pulled,” she said. “We are building up students and tearing down boundaries around their hearts that have been there for years."

To learn more about Empower Youth visit the website, empoweryouth.me, or Facebook page, @empoweredyouth.