New event center opens at Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranch
BATESVILLE — People in the Batesville area who want a venue for parties have a new option.
An existing building on the campus of the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranch outside of Batesville has been converted into an event center. The Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribboncutting July 20 for the facility.
“It was an existing building on our campus that was opened in the mid-1990s,” said Matt Cleveland, director of fundraising and marketing for Youth Ranch. “It was meant to be an all-purpose building. It had a basketball goal in it, a commercial kitchen and stage area. We didn’t use it for a whole lot other than events and parties.
“It didn’t have working air conditioning in it for probably a decade. We recently remodeled it. We had some funds become available that we could put into it and remodel it. We put a new roof on it, new
air conditioning, repainted it and stained all the wood.”
Cleveland said the staff at the youth ranch did all the painting.
“We had a bid for painting inside here, and it was ridiculously high,” he said. “Our staff did it ourselves. They also stained the beams. The concrete floor was stained professionally. The roof was done professionally. Other than that, most of the work was done by the staff. We’re proud of the staff.”
“We gave it a nice face-lift. Now we’re going to start using it to rent for events for the community. That will generate more support for our mission to provide homes for kids. It will help us be more self-sustaining and really get more people out to the campus and learn about what we do.”
Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranch is a residential campus for children between the ages of 6 and 17. According to its Facebook page, the mission of the Youth Ranch is to address, remedy and prevent child abuse and neglect by creating safe, healthy and permanent homes for children.
Cleveland said the youth ranch had wanted to do work on the event center for several years.
“We’ve just not had the funds available to do that,” he said. “Nancy Fulton, our CEO, saw opportunities for a couple of buildings on our property. We’ve got a small chapel that we would like to do a little
renovation on as well and start offering it for weddings.
“It’s really a beautiful campus out here. We’ve got about 600 acres on the banks of the White River. We’ve got hills on the other side of the river in the background. Our pastures are nice. We’ve got 100 head of Hereford cattle. It’s beautiful scenery.”
Cleveland said the event center has 16 round tables with seating for eight at each one, as well as tall cocktail tables.
“We do have some sound equipment so people can have a band,” he said. “We had Dane Joneshill from Searcy come and play for us on the opening day.”
Cleveland said the kitchen area is large enough to serve all the people on the campus in a school-type setting.
“What it was originally built for is sort of a cafeteria if we wanted to feed all the kids at the same time up here,” he said. “We’ve never done that. We’ve always done family-style meals in the houses. The house parents do the cooking. Some of the kids help with the cooking. They eat around a table at night, just like a big family.”
Cleveland said the staff is working on a page for its website, www.youthranches.com, so patrons can reserve the event center.
“We’ll have pricing information and pictures on our website,” he said.
To reserve the center, call (870) 793-6841.