Rainbow Acres, a community and ranch for adults with developmental disabilities, celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday, Sept. 21.
Rainbow Acres was founded in 1974 by Ralph Showers, an American Baptist pastor, who struggled with learning disabilities when he was a student.
He was inspired by Koinonia Farm, a religious farming community in Georgia, and formed Rainbow Acres as a community of ranchers where adults with developmental disabilities could work and live together.
Since its conception, Rainbow Acres has had many additions and developments. In the 1990s, it introduced a vocational program, allowing the residents, called “ranchers,” to pursue off-campus jobs and improve their job skills onsite as well.
In 2001, the site expanded from 13 to 50 acres, including more housing for the ranchers, a community center, greenhouses and a barn.
The celebration started with a performance by Rainbow Acres’ Ambassador Choir, which often performs at churches and other organizations.
President and CEO Mike Prochelo said that it takes a community to make Rainbow Acres work.
“On any typical day here we have ranchers supporting each other, loving each other, listening to each other and consoling each other with their challenges,” Prochelo said. “I’m so pleased to be working with this great team of hardworking, dedicated, capable, competent professionals … Every day all these wonderful good things happen. If you add that up over the weeks, months, years, decades, it’s like an explosion of goodness and faith.”
Camp Verde Mayor Dee Jenkins spoke of her “profound gratitude to Ralph Showers for his vision and his dream to provide a place that with compassion and dedication has enabled hundreds of ranchers to have a fulfilling and joyful life, and to all that followed in his footsteps that have made his dream into the reality we see today.
“Camp Verde is proud that Rainbow Acres calls our community home. Many ranchers learned skills by working at nearby businesses and Rainbow Acres provides meaningful jobs to our residents. Thank you so much for that.”
Claudia Ault, who has been on the ranch’s board of trustees since 1998, described the first 25 years of Rainbow Acres as Showers’ dream in action, while the second 25 years involved the transformation of the campus into what it is today.
Ault added that in the early 2000s, they started a capital campaign to raise money for new homes. She remembered how one of the ranchers, then staying in a single wide mobile home, was excitedly talking about his new home.
“He would lay in his bed and he would see light through the ceiling of the roof of that single-wide mobile home,” Ault said. “Today, there’s plenty of light in the new homes. It’s not coming through the roof or the ceiling. It’s coming from beautiful daylight through the windows, and it’s coming from the light of love.”
Mark Showers, son of Ralph Showers, talked about his experiences growing up on the ranch.
When asked what Rainbow Acres means to him, he said that one of its meanings is sacrifice. It was a sacrifice for his family to move out of their comfortable California home to a place with no water and no utilities, although his father promised him horses.
He also said that the ranch means friendship and connection to the local community. Showers recalled that his dad was once given a plaque that said “God doesn’t make junk, God makes rainbows,” and that became one of his mantras throughout his life.
The ceremony then honored two ranchers, Mike and Jeff, who have both spent the past 50 years at the ranch, and the ceremony concluded with another song from the choir.
On Saturday, Oct. 28, from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., Rainbow Acres will be holding its new signature event, Verde Valley Glow, as part of their Family and Friends Weekend. The event will be open to the public and will kick off the yearlong 50th anniversary celebration with hot air balloons that will light up the sky.
