New Rockford location for BraveHearts to serve veterans and children

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The therapeutic horseback riding program BraveHearts is expanding into Rockford.

“in order to grow our programs, we need to have more farm, just two facilities with 20 acres each just wasn’t doing enough,” said volunteer coordinator Amanda Bethards. “We needed to expand in order to serve more veterans, serve more children, and take care of our horses.”

The non-profit specializes in providing therapy and healing through horseback riding. BraveHearts started in 2002 on Maxon Road in Harvard, and since 2007 has become the nation’s largest program to serve military veterans.

BraveHearts plans to open a third, 133-acre location in the area at Perks Ranch, 12526 N Weldon Road, just south of Severson Dells.

“We just we just closed on it a few weeks ago,” Berthard explained. “It was in the works for well over a year plus, trying to get it done. And we finally got it done, and it just probably we’re going to take our time, you know, we’re going to walk before we can start running, and we’re going to make sure that everything we do, we’re going to do correctly.”

Perks Ranch will start off as a horse sanctuary, allowing the animals a day off to rehab and relax. In the future, the bigger property will allow for expanded activities.

“It’s going to be more of a horse sanctuary, but it’s also going to allow us to do trail rides. It’s going to allow us to do other programming out there in the future as we can, work to, you know, find out what we can do within the facilities of over 130 acres. So that’s a big piece of property,” Berthard said.

Volunteers and workers said they are excited for what it means for the nonprofit.

Bravehearts also has a location in Poplar Grove right off Route 173.

Last year, BraveHearts connected over 1,800 people, mostly veterans, with horses to provide relief for mental health conditions.