Back to the basics at the Central Oregon Veterans Ranch

Located in the heart of central Oregon between Redmond and Bend, Central Oregon Veterans Ranch (COVR) is a 19-acre working farm that “restores purpose and spirit to veterans of all ages and eras.” COVR relies heavily upon community partners and partnership resources to offer free agriculture and peer-support programs to veterans.

For the last 7 years, the non-profit organization has engaged veterans in building a community that fosters peace and an immediate sense of belonging among a population often marginalized due to traumatic military experiences.

COVR’s agriculture and peer-support programs are non-stigmatizing vehicles that engage veterans in healthy activities, education and vital social support.

Envisioning Change

Alison Perry, founder and Executive Director of COVR, is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a military family background. After her brother deployed to Iraq in 2003, Perry felt called to work with returning veterans, pursuing a career with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). She spent six years at the VA working as a trauma therapist and contracting officer and briefly worked as executive director at another veteran nonprofit.

During her time at the VA, Perry worked with a 22-year-old Iraq combat veteran who returned home with complex trauma. This experience, among others, highlighted gaps in the medical model’s ability to treat trauma holistically, including the sometimes retraumatizing effect of institutional care.

“Medical facilities are often unable to adequately address the complexity of veterans’ needs post-combat,” Perry explained. “PTSD treatment models are focused primarily on addressing symptom management, and do not always include an assessment of social and spiritual needs. The constellation of PTSD symptoms is often rooted in the deeper wounds of moral or what some would call soul injury. Complex trauma requires a complex, holistic approach to helping veterans heal and truly reintegrate.”

Perry had a vision of a more organic, community-centered model of care for veterans, one very different from what florescent, white-walled medical facilities could provide.

Perry shared, “After my 22-year old Iraq veteran ended up in the psychiatric ward throwing furniture and threatening staff, I looked at a colleague of mine, exasperated, and said, ‘I wish we had a sheep ranch out east where we could send these vets when they got home...where they could work on the land, sleep under the stars, and be in a community of other vets.’”

Vision meets reality 

In 2012, Perry left the VA to make her dream become a reality. COVR partnered with a private investor in 2015 to purchase the 19-acre property from its previous owner, who had coincidentally been raising a breed of heritage sheep.

Thoroughly networked in the Portland and Central Oregon veteran communities after 7 years, Perry leveraged her contacts to create an Advisory Board of veterans, veteran family members, and healthcare providers passionate about her vision.

The first two veterans instrumental in getting COVR started, Wray Harris and Michael Walgrave (“Wali”), dedicated a few years of their life to getting the ranch operations off the ground. Veterans and veteran family members had begun emailing the new COVR website about services, and Wray and “Wali” followed up with every inquiry, building the first iteration of the ranch’s thriving veteran community.

A weekly “Veteran Volunteer Day” started and helped recruit vet volunteers to begin caring for and developing the ranch property.

None of these veterans had prior farming or ranching experience. Motivated by wanting to help their fellow veterans, they were eager to dive in and learn whatever was needed to build a thriving veteran community. Community volunteers with subject matter expertise willingly stepped up to mentor and teach.

“That’s what’s so amazing about veterans – you give them a mission and they’ll figure out how to do it,” Perry said.

In 2016, the ranch received a grant from several local Rotary clubs for a 40-by-60-foot greenhouse, which was built by veteran and Rotary volunteers together. It is currently used to grow hydroponic lettuce year round and sold in local markets.

The greenhouse’s hydroponic system contains 240 vertical towers to maximize growing capacity and production in the greenhouse. The Ranch partnered with the Oregon Department of Agriculture to start their hydroponics business and create a customer base in the area.

In 2017, Orion Carriger, a career horticulturist who had been working with plants for 20 years, joined the COVR team. Delighted to find a blank slate, Carriger was excited to use his expertise to develop the new greenhouse. Carriger spends his time on the Ranch mentoring veterans and volunteers, managing the hydroponic growing operations and assisting with just about everything else to ensure smooth operations.

“Working at COVR has granted me a special opportunity to do more than just grow plants for food,” Carriger said. “It’s given me a place in the veterans' community where I can share knowledge and develop food gardens for the benefit of many people.”

Working with NRCS Oregon

The Ranch’s main goal from the start was to provide education and therapeutic experiences for veterans while also growing and selling food locally. In the summer of 2019, Perry and Carriger worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Oregon to expand their growing space.

They worked closely with Stephanie Payne, NRCS Oregon’s small farm and organic specialist based out of Redmond to identify farm goals and resource concerns. Through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), COVR received financial assistance to install a seasonal high tunnel.

High tunnels protect plants from severe weather and allow farmers to extend their growing seasons – growing earlier into the spring, later into the fall, and sometimes, year-round.

“The timing of the high tunnel was golden, as it coincided with the start of the pandemic,” Perry said. “It created a safe outdoor space where veterans were able to grow their own food and connect with other veterans during an otherwise very isolating time.”

COVR uses the high tunnel and the outdoor growing space as their Victory Garden, a free community gardening space for veterans and veteran families. The Victory Garden contains 16 high tunnel plots and 12 outdoor plots for gardeners to choose from.

“The Victory Garden has been a huge success and we have plans to make it even better this year,” said Carriger. “Surplus harvest donations, a hügelkultur mound, a pollinator garden and pumpkin patch are all in the works for 2022.”

Since the Ranch’s start, the 12 acres of pasture needed some tender love and care to restore it for sheep to graze. The pasture fields were flood irrigated and degraded, with concentrated spots of grass surrounded by even larger areas of dirt and mud.

In fall 2021, the Ranch worked with NRCS Oregon to secure EQIP Conservation Incentive Contract (EQIP-CIC) funding to modernize the irrigation system. Starting as a pilot program in 2020, EQIP-CIC is a financial assistance program that targets drought and climate-related impacts on the land.

Through EQIP-CIC, COVR will implement the following conservation practices to increase their farm resiliency:

• Irrigation Water Management
• Sprinkler System
• Pasture and Hay Planting
• Herbaceous Weed Treatment
• Prescribed Grazing
• Brush Management

“Addressing the water quantity issues on the ranch was a top priority,” Payne said. “Thanks to the expertise and input of NRCS Oregon’s engineer, Garret Gibson, we worked together to come up with a much more efficient way of irrigating the pasture, saving water and increasing livestock forage availability for the sheep.”

The new sprinkler irrigation system will provide a consistent supply of water to green up the pasture with desirable plant species for the first time in several years, and soon COVR’s small flock of sheep will be able to roam and graze.

The modernized system will help the ranch grow a diversity of drought-tolerant grass and legume plant species in the pasture, putting roots in the ground to reduce soil erosion and increase the soil’s organic matter. The system also helps cut back on energy and costs, while increasing revenue in sheep fodder and the sale of sheep to local customers.

COVR’s planned animal husbandry program will provide veterans with another hands-on agricultural learning opportunity and act as a form of therapy.

“With the continued drought conditions, reduced irrigation water allocations, and the ranch’s goal to provide a space for veterans to raise sheep, upgrading the pasture’s irrigation system from flood to sprinklers will help meet operational goals while dealing with the realities of a changing climate,” Payne explained.

Partnering for success

COVR relies heavily on partnerships to achieve its mission. The COVR team has established robust relationships with many groups and partners, including Oregon State University Extension, High Desert Food and Farm Alliance, Deschutes County Behavioral Health, the VA, local Vet Center, and Oregon Health Authority.

COVR partners with High Desert Food and Farm Alliance offsite link image    , a Central Oregon non-profit focused on supporting local food systems, to administer the USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development grant program which offers free one-on-one mentoring and education classes for veterans farming and ranching.

Veterans helping veterans

COVR uses a veterans-helping-veterans peer-support model that provides both structured and unstructured opportunities for veterans to work the ranch together, learning to care for the land and each other. The ranch is a strengths-based model that helps veterans get back to basics – getting people outside to grow their own food and connect to their community.

COVR provides numerous opportunities for hands-on farming experience, whether tending a plot in the Victory Garden, taking a workshop or class through the Beginner Farmer Rancher program, weekly bee and greenhouse tutorials, and weekly veteran volunteer workdays.

It also provides veterans with opportunities to engage in a variety of weekly support groups.

“It’s been a tremendously challenging, demanding and rewarding journey,” Perry said. “We didn’t have a blueprint when we started but we had a vision and together we figured out how to make that vision a reality.”

It’s no surprise that Perry has plans to further support veterans on the farm in the future. The property has a fully-remodeled home that has been licensed with the state as an adult foster home. She envisions this home to one day support veterans with combat trauma for specialized end-of-life care.

Perry’s passion for veteran support is deeply rooted in every aspect of the ranch.

“I sometimes think of the ranch as a monastery for veterans...different ages and eras coming together for a common purpose, working the land, and caring for each other and a shared community. Veterans helping veterans is the common thread,” she said.