KSHB 41 anchor/reporter JuYeon Kim covers agricultural issues and the fentanyl crisis. Share your story idea with JuYeon.
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Agriculture and the rural lifestyle can often be difficult to find in the city.
To bridge that gap, a group of cowboys started the Copper Boyz Ranch, a Kansas City-based nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching agriculture skills and horsemanship to urban youth.
The nonprofit is run by four core members who grew up around horses. Their families were ranchers, but they said the value of growing up in a rural environment was often lost on them as children.
President Your’Majesty Elbey and Lyndell Woodward, head of logistics, said after making poor lifestyle choices as young adults, they found themselves again in their family's roots.
Kicking up dirt and taking care of animals became therapy.
“Everything just goes away when you hit them gates," Woodward said. "Like, whatever you’re stressing about, when you come behind them gates, nothing else matters. It’s just you and them horses and the nature."
Now, they are working to give urban kids that same outlet during a time when youth violence is an epidemic in Kansas City.
“I was a troubled kid, so me being around this, this really helped me a lot,” Woodward said. “We’re trying to expose the horses to everybody else. Let them know, 'Hey, we’re the same. We’re the same. We grew up like you. Hey, we can make a change as well. We’re here to help you.'"
Elbey lost two people he knew to homicide in the last year.
“It hurts us, you know," Elbey said. "So we’re definitely trying to save ‘em before anything happens to ‘em."
The Copper Boyz Ranch offers lessons on horseback riding, animal care and lassoing. At the heart of what they do is violence prevention, therapy and social development.
“We’ve definitely been around a whole co-op of men to teach us how to be men, as well as to give us lifelong skills of riding horses, you know what I’m saying?" Elbey said. "So we definitely want to pass that along to the youth of Kansas City."
Khiyar Allen, 9, is one of those youth. He fell in love with the country after seeing a cowboy lasso a bull for the first time.
Despite his doubts and fears before going through Copper Boyz Ranch’s program, he is now letting courage take the lead.
“My first time, I was very scared, and then I gained my confidence,” Khiyar said.
For his uncle, Brian Allen, seeing his nephew play outside and being a kid gives him peace of mind.
“He’s never got to experience it," Allen said. "You know, we don’t have a lot of options for stuff like this around here. To be able to do something natural, rather than always be in front of a screen of some type, always having electronics to teach them rather than learn for themselves physically.”
In the coming years, the Copper Boyz Ranch is going big. The members imagine a community garden and horse sanctuary that houses other farm animals, too.
They said they dream big so little boys like Khiyar can dream even bigger.
“I wanna be an NFL player, but if I don’t get drafted to any of those sports, I will become a cowboy and probably recreate the generation of these guys,” Khiyar said.
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