By Mira Brody VP MEDIA
For years, Gallatin County has faced rising youth mental health needs with few resources to meet them. In the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 14% of Gallatin County high schoolers reported attempting suicide in the previous year.
“It’s a shocking number,” Gallatin Behavioral Health Coalition Coordinator Kirsten Smith said. “In that same year, almost 300 kids ended up in our emergency department after a self-harm attempt.”
Lighthouse Ranch is a nonprofit that provides teens and families with the mental health services, residential care and support to navigate crisis, build skills and find a path to healing. To grow their services and match a growing need, Lighthouse Ranch has set an ambitious goal—to raise $8.5 million and open a full-service campus for local families.
The door of opportunity opened when Smith caught word of the sale of the former Liberty Place’s Bootstrap Ranch, once the sole rehab facility in Montana for severely brain-injured adults, which closed in 2023. The campus, located along Dry Creek Road in Belgrade, was still equipped with 10 buildings including dorms, classrooms, a gym, cafeteria, commercial kitchen, barn, staff housing and 30 acres of open space.
“The moment I saw it, I thought, we have a provider and we have a place—how do we make this happen,” said Smith, who also serves as Lighthouse Ranch’s executive director.
The project is being led by the Human Resource Development Council, Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch, Gallatin County and the Gallatin Behavioral Health Coalition. It has quickly received generous support from a network of community partners—HRDC helped purchase the property for $3.55 million after Liberty Place agreed to dramatically reduce the price; Gallatin County Commissioners contributed $1.5 million in seed funding; and donations of $550,000 from Bozeman Health, $300,000 from Yellowstone Club Community Foundation, and between $50,000 and $100,000 each from private family foundations, have helped raise the first third.
The Bozeman-based Rieschel Foundation recently approved a $250,000 grant toward the project, and for the foundation’s Executive Director Pete MacFadyen, it was a way to give back to a cause he’s been ingrained with for most of his career. MacFadyen founded Big Sky Youth Empowerment where he worked as the executive director for 18 years, and he holds a license in professional counseling.
“We invest in our kids because we care about the future, and from a pragmatic standpoint, providing a robust continuum of care … it saves all of us money and time in the future,” MacFadyen said. “Having this service available to the people in the community is helpful because it’s the right thing to do.”
The completed campus will consist of housing for 60 teens and staff as well as a school, and therapeutic and recreational facilities. The space will allow families to seek care locally instead of traveling to Helena, Billings, Missoula or Salt Lake City for inpatient care.
That separation, Smith said, compounds trauma for kids and families alike.
“Sending a kid out of town … is so disruptive for that child to leave and not be working in harmony with their family if [family members] aren’t able to relocate,” Smith said. “And even if they are, there’s this transition back to their home, to their community.”
The ambitious fundraising goal will will allow Lighthouse Ranch to expand its existing services, a plan outlined in three phases. First, it expands outpatient and community-based services from approximately 70 to 200 youth and families per day providing early intervention, therapy and intensive outpatient care. Second, it will add short-term, youth-specific crisis and post-crisis stabilization beds with 24/7 staffing and clinical support. Finally, it will establish a full residential and educational space serving 45 to 60 youth in residential treatment, and an on-campus day school program for regional districts, allowing students with mental health needs to attend school during the day and return home at night as needed.
The motivation to reach that goal remains simple, as Smith put it: “If our kids aren’t okay, nobody’s okay.”
On Dec. 12, Lighthouse Ranch raised another $204,000 more fundraising dollars at an event called LIFT, hosted by SAV Digital Environments and Alder and Tweed in Big Sky, aided by a $100,000 donation match by the Yellowstone Club Community Foundation and Lone Mountain Land Company. The generosity and support shown by the local community, both Smith and MacFadyen agree, has been remarkable.
“This community is incredible. We have world-class human beings living here. We have world-class access to natural resources. We take care of one another,” MacFadyen said. “I think it speaks to the character of the community.”
