McDonald Ranch closing; owners seek homes for animals

For years, McDonald Ranch east of Santa Rosa has rescued animals and taught children about the value of caring for critters in need during its popular summer and after-school camps.

The nonprofit now is shutting down and looking for families to adopt the several dozen animals ranging in size from horses to guinea pigs at its St. Helena Road sanctuary.

The property will be put on the market as a short sale, said Linda McDonald, who founded the program 23 years ago. She estimates she has two months to find new homes for the dozens of animals before she and her husband, Richard Crenshaw, must abandon the sanctuary property where they live with several international volunteers.

“I feel lost. What am I going to do with my life?” McDonald said, staring down at her hands while sitting at the dining room table. Outside, a peacock, rabbits and dozens of cats took shelter after the ranch was drenched in rainfall.

“The real sad part of this is the loss to the children,” she said. “The kids had goals. They wanted to grow up to be counselors (at the camp).”

Santa Rosa teen Anevay Marruso was devastated when she learned about the imminent closure. Her aunt first enrolled her in the summer camp when she was a troubled 12-year-old, in and out of juvenile hall, Marruso said.

Now 17, Marruso said the camp turned her life around. She eventually moved in with McDonald and Crenshaw, who provided her with a stable home, she said. They trained her to be a camp counselor and let her work with a horse named JiJi, who didn’t respond well to others.

“She’s basically my life,” said Marruso, who’s currently living in transitional housing. She wants to adopt the horse and eventually move to be closer to McDonald and Crenshaw once they relocate.

“They’ve done so much for me and everyone else,” she said. “We had so many children who were troubled (come through the program).”

McDonald said she and her husband will load up an RV and head to Texas once the property sells and they find homes for the animals, which include a pair of horses, four miniature horses, two dozen ducks and four dozen chickens.

They also have about 40 cats. Although a third of them are feral, the rest are family-friendly.

McDonald and her husband first purchased the 55-acre ranch off the winding Saint Helena Road two decades ago to serve as an animal sanctuary and summer camp where children could milk goats, pet chickens and ride horses.

When her husband was laid off from work after 30 years as an X-ray technician, McDonald said the couple had to take out a second mortgage and sell a large part of the property that was zoned for recreational activity to keep the program afloat. As a result of selling the land and keeping only acreage zoned for residential use, they lost permits necessary to hold the summer camp at the site. They then had to hold the camps at other sites in Santa Rosa.

For the past three years, they have held the camps on a ranch on Guerneville Road just west of Santa Rosa.

“McDonald Ranch and this family are casualties of the economic crash,” said Holly Harris, who sits on the nonprofit’s board of directors. She said the couple has poured more than $1 million into the program.

“They just ran out of resources and can’t afford to do this anymore,” said Harris, whose daughter has attended the camp for the past four years.

The closure wasn’t because of a lack in enrollment, she said. More children came every year, with as many as 40 coming to each weeklong camp, Harris said. The children learned how swim, took ceramics courses and participated in outdoor activities such as archery and horseback riding.

However, the tuition fees, ranging from $190 to $350, weren’t enough to cover the cost, Harris said.

It cost $80,000 to $100,000 a year to run the ranch and camps, said McDonald, who started the program to help children learn life skills and improve their academics.

People interested in adopting an animal can call Linda McDonald at 707-537-0955. The couple have set up a GoFundMe page to cover the costs of feeding the animals while they look to rehome them. It can be found at www.gofundme.com/mcdonaldranch.

McDonald, who throughout the years hosted volunteers, including a pair from Australia and a pair from Thailand currently on the ranch, said they don’t regret putting their savings into the program.

“Over the years, we’ve been able to work with a couple thousand kids,” she said, adding that the kids are more like “grandchildren.”

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.