Barren Heights Retreat
Building more compassionate communities by serving families who have children with disabilities.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Barren Heights
We have tremendous respect for parents and caretakers of children with disabilities - they are often physically taxed and emotionally drained in unique ways. We seek to encourage and rejuvenate these families through FREE weekend retreats and through community outreach events. All of our events are volunteer driven as we seek to be an organization that is primarily families serving families.
Family Retreats
We simply want special needs families to have the opportunity to relax, refresh, and rejuvenate with a weekend getaway at a facility with their needs in mind. There are many camps and programs for children who have disabilities, but very few that serve the entire family, and that is what makes us special.
Our Family Retreats run Friday through Sunday from June through October with three volunteer host families serving the three guest families. This memorable experience includes scheduled group activities as well as plenty of free time. Favorite activities include boating, bonfires, Barn Church, archery, water balloon launch, tractor rides, splash pad, board games, puzzles, basketball, nine-square, ping-pong, tennis, frisbee golf, and more. We host 20 retreats each season and have served over 900 families since 2006. We have impacted over 4500 individuals from 13 different states.
Specialty Retreats
Winter and Spring specialty retreats give men, women, and couples the chance to grow and be encouraged by others walking the same path.
Men's Retreats: This 4 day weekend adventure inspires and refreshes men as they discover how to live a renewed life with a God-given passion.
Marriage Retreats: This weekend getaway provides a nice blend of relaxation, rejuvenation, and romance, as couples learn about the integral relationship building blocks of Love and Respect.
Mother/Daughter Retreats: This weekend getaway provides a chance to cultivate one of the most important relationships within a family while providing mothers and daughters the tools and Godly wisdom needed to thrive through the teen years.
Community Center
In the fall of 2015, we officially opened our Community Center located in Louisville, Kentucky. At Barren Heights we desire to create more compassionate communities through love and encouragement. The Community Center plays a vital role in that process as it provides a safe gathering place for families who have children with disabilities. It is a place where our men's and women's ministries are flourishing as we focus on creating deep relationships as well as a place of fun, fellowship, and rejuvenation for families.
Bible Studies: We host weekly bible studies for men, women, and couples at our Community Center that bring GROWTH, HOPE, and ENCOURAGEMENT to every participant.
Events: We host men's, women's, couples, and family events that include activities such as nutrition counseling, mom's night out paint parties, disability Christmas and Easter parties, ice cream socials, movie nights, and Barn Church. These events offer a safe place for volunteers and special needs families to connect with Jesus and with one another.
Where we work
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of Monthly Donors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, People with disabilities
Related Program
Barren Heights
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
After setting a goal to diversify our funding we increased our number of monthly donors by over 600%.
Number of individuals attending community events or trainings
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Parents, People with disabilities
Related Program
Community Center
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Community Center men's, women's, marriage, and family event participants. Does not account for many families attending multiple events.
Number of administrators and staff who plan and experience professional development activities together
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Barren Heights
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Professional development has become an important part of our staff culture as we continue to integrate Salesforce into every aspect of our organization.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
There is an old African proverb that says, ""If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together."" According to the 2010 Census, there are 54 million families affected by disability in the United States. Many of them feel alone in their fight against the overwhelming struggles of daily life. As one of the most overlooked groups of people, there are very few places where these families feel loved, accepted, welcomed, and safe. Barren Heights' vision is to create more compassionate communities through families serving families with the love of Christ and led by the Holy Spirit to further the Kingdom of God. Together, we strive to be the hands and feet of Christ for these families so they know they are never alone.
We accomplish this mainly by providing free weekend retreats, and community outreach events and ministry programs for families who have children with physical or developmental disabilities. While we are a faith based organization, we do not discriminate families on the basis of religion, race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age. Our greatest desire can be summed up in Isaiah 41:18-20:
"I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
19 I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
20 so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it."
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our 2017 focus is Community and Infrastructure Development within the scope of the following:
1. We will continue to place emphasis on the activities that we do BEST.
-Love and encourage families through families
-Small group gatherings, blending those with and without special needs
-Occasional large group family fun social events
2. Given current political and financial landscape, we will work to pay off our leftover remaining Community Center building debt. We will focus on fine tuning and stabilizing verses expanding programs and facilities.
3. For sustainability, we will continue to integrate volunteer resources but place more dependence on staff and paid contractors.
4. We will work towards eliminating any dependence on the founding family by 2019. This will be accomplished through increasing fundraising efforts, improving utilization of Salesforce (cloud based CRM) and technology, and transitioning from founder-led to board-led.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Over the past several years, we have grown and diversified our staff to ensure the capacity, skills, and expertise required to achieve our goals. Our qualified leaders have many God-given talents and are passionate and driven in their quest to carry out the mission, vision, and strategies of Barren Heights. We seek out best practices within our industry to learn how other similar organizations are achieving their goals. We also rely on a strong network within our community to assist us in the specialized areas that are crucial to reaching our objectives. Support from our generous volunteer community goes a long way in helping us both maintain and evolve our programs to support families that have children with disabilities.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
From the beginning, those involved at Barren Heights have worked hard to see their God-given vision realized. Following is a timeline of significant accomplishments:
2004: Ground is broken for the new Barren Heights Retreat Center in Scottsville, Kentucky.
2005: A formal board is established. We successfully concluded the first summer retreat season after 9 free family enrichment weekends.
2008: Many facility and process improvements made including operations manuals, paved walkways, enclosed picnic pavilion, and a beautiful, restful gazebo.
2010: Barren Heights was named as a finalist for the Community Impact Awards of Southern Kentucky and founder Toni Rose was honored with The Louisville Bell Award for outstanding volunteer service.
2013. We hired our first intern to assist with the expanding operational demands. We concluded our capital campaign by opening the “New Barn" at the Retreat Center to provide disability friendly Barn Church services, laundry facilities, housing for volunteer leader families, capabilities for winter retreats, storage, and a safe storm shelter.
2015: We opened the Community Center in Louisville, Kentucky, and moved the administration office from the founders' home to the new center. We hosted 20 family retreats for approximately 100 households and 500 individuals. We hired our second part-time employee to coordinate Community Center events. We developed seven operational committees with volunteer team leaders.
2016: We increased our team to 4 part-time staff members to assist with ministry operations, information technology, fundraising, and development. We updated our volunteer curriculum with detailed resource guide booklets. We implemented new Community Center programming. We updated our data management processes to web based programming. We developed a formal marketing and branding plan with professional imagery, material, and communications. We created a volunteer information survey to better foster volunteer opportunities and outreach. We hosted our 11th annual benefit dinner and auction with record attendance and record results.
2017: We hired on our First Marketing and Development Coordinator, increasing the paid staff to 5. We grew our monthly donors from 16 to 114 – a 660% increase! We welcomed over 500 people to the Community Center for various events. We hosted our 12th annual benefit dinner and silent auction with record attendance and record results.
2018 and Beyond: We want Barren Heights to continue to change lives long into the future. To do that, we are aggressively working towards becoming a self-sustaining, board driven organization. We are creating a comprehensive Volunteer training and development guide. We are making the switch to run everything including events, campaigns, fundraising, and retreats out of Salesforce. We are continuing to diversify our funding by pursuing grants and major gifts.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Barren Heights Retreat
Board of directorsas of 01/30/2023
Mindy Terrell
Chris Cunningham
Cunningham Door & Window
Karen Rogers
Community Volunteer and Special Needs Mom
Mindy Terrell
Community Volunteer
Tim Hill
NeuroRestorative Care and Special Needs Dad
Fritz Busch
Actuary
Doug Wood
Courtney Wittsell
CPA
Vern Scheiter
Retired- UPS
Mark Lindeman
UPS Pilot
Dan Pierce
Teacher
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data