The following is this week’s I AM, YOU ARE, WE ARE honoree by Ashton Greer and Nicole Van Hyfte
Tell me about yourself:
My name is Roxy Reed and I’m a Speech Language Pathologist. I also care for and raise all the animals on my therapy ranch along with my teenage daughter, Izzy. We own Blue Heron Ranch and Retreat Center, as well as “Roxy’s House”, the not for profit that serves children with special needs through animal-assisted therapy that is housed on the ranch. We host barn dances, company picnics, corporate retreats, yoga and healing retreats, weddings, birthday parties, and other gatherings. The proceeds from Blue Heron Ranch events directly benefit the children served at Roxy’s House.
Tell me about your family:
I have two daughters, Lexy (20) and Izzy (16). Lexy is a sophomore at University of Illinois Champaign and Izzy is a junior at Heritage High School. Izzy and I live on our 9-acre therapy ranch now and we rely on each other to care for all 20 of our animals as well as the property care and maintenance. The animals on our ranch are also our family. We have three potbelly pigs, three alpacas, three chickens, two peacocks, seven barn cats and two house dogs.
Have you always lived in Vermilion County?
I grew up in Vermilion County. I attended college at Northern Illinois University, then went to Nashville, Tennessee to work at Vanderbilt Hospital in the traumatic brain injury unit. I loved working with patients who were regaining cognitive skills (memory, reasoning, problem solving). I developed the school re-entry program and work re-entry program at Vanderbilt for patients who were returning to their lives after serious head injuries. I loved assessing their work and school situations and helping employees go back to their jobs, many with modifications, after months in rehabilitation. Since my area of specialty was cognition, I looked at what “thinking skills” they would need to be successful. I also worked with stroke patients on swallowing, feeding and speech. After several years there, I moved to Chicago to work with inner city preschoolers who were speech and language delayed. I split my time between the Children’s Place on Humbolt, a preschool for children with the AIDS virus, and other preschools with low socioeconomic and at-risk children. I focused on pre-literacy and language and the most fun was teaching young children how much fun it is to read. Many of them had no books or print material in their homes. Exposing them to the wonderful world of reading through literacy strategies was a dream come true. After 14 years away, my husband and I returned to Danville to raise our children.
Did you go to school here?
I went to Danville High School, then I attended DACC, then on to Northern Illinois University where I received a bachelor’s degree in Communicative Disorders and a Master’s Degree in Speech Language Pathology.
What made you either stay here, or move here?
I returned to Danville with my husband after living in a few big cities when my daughter was nine months old. I knew it was time to come home and raise my family here. I absolutely love Danville. I wanted my children to know their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and extended family. I knew we could make a difference and I really feel we did that. We lived in Danville for 16 years and on our ranch in Homer for 4 years. While we’re still in Vermilion County, we are on the county line and are able to serve both Vermilion and Champaign County families. While living in Danville over the years, I participated in many community fundraisers. I founded the CASA Royal Ball, an interactive fairy tale that ran from 2010 to 2014. I spent several years chairing various events at the Festival of Trees. One year, we attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Gathering of Santa’s Elves. We officially counted 680 people dressed as elves. While we didn’t beat England’s record of 1100, it was a great try, so much fun and we helped raise money for our local hospital. I restructured the Polar Express event, adding a stage show, hot chocolate dancers on the buses, and many other magical features. I believe one of my strongest skills is bringing magic to large events and tapping into the joy that children are so open to receiving.
What jobs have you had, and have currently?
After returning to Danville, I opened a small traveling speech therapy private practice serving low-income children. I partnered with Head Start and provided services for all of Vermilion County at Head Start sites. I was able to do this while raising my daughters. Later, I opened a private practice on Gilbert Street, where I provided individual and group speech therapy for toddlers through the Early Intervention program. One day, I took a toddler language group to my parent’s home on Denmark Road where I was raised. We walked the trails in the woods behind the house. It was so easy to teach new vocabulary words like butterfly, cattail, daisy, flower, etc. when we were looking at the real thing. That’s when it hit me that I needed to move my private practice to the country. I wanted to focus on nature-based therapy and animal-assisted therapy. Less than a year later, we found our current property in Homer that had an 11,000 square foot pole barn that was wheelchair and amtryke accessible! There was space for animals, events, fundraisers, a therapy clinic and outdoor therapy sessions. Things fell in place, and we moved to the ranch. The property was in disarray and we got to work building the therapy clinic inside the barn, building fences, cleaning up the neglected property, and learning how to live on a farm. I took classes on alpaca care and animal husbandry and finally I was able to open as a private therapy practice. Eventually, it became clear we needed community support and volunteers to help serve children and families and fund the care and shelter of our therapy animals. It was time to take the leap. I organized and founded a not for profit, “Roxy’s House”. We will officially open for speech therapy next month, April of 2023. I am certified in Natural Language Acquisition, a specific treatment approach for people on the autism spectrum. This treatment approach, along with animal-assisted therapy, have become the answer to incredible gains and understanding of autism therapy that I have always felt was missing. The animals have a wisdom that often surpasses my 25 years of experience as a speech language pathologist. Therapy sessions at Roxy’s House may involve interaction with the resident animals, riding amtrykes in the barn, swinging from a therapy swing in the barn, or balance walking on hay bales. Many children must be moving in order to be learning. We plan to expand to physical and occupational therapy in the future.
What volunteer opportunities do you participate in?
This year, we hosted the 2nd annual Magical Country Christmas in the barn. We decked the barn out for Christmas with over 20 trees, and thousands of lights. We were able to raise funds to begin our first official year as a not for profit. Children and families came for the Santa dance party, walked the alpacas, made alpaca fiber ornaments, and enjoyed hot chocolate and a treat.
If I’m not working on the ranch, I’m volunteering with Ambucs or other non-profits. If I’m not in a therapy session, I’m cleaning a stall or the chicken coop. Our family has learned what hard work really is, and a wholesome lifestyle in the country is a life worth living.
What do you do for fun?
I love campfires in the backyard. Making dinner in foil packs on the fire and eating outside in the evening under the big oak trees is nothing short of bliss. I love taking my pigs on their daily walk to the barn. The interactions between our animals are always a source of joy. When Happy the alpaca is loving on a barn cat my heart just swells, or when Humphrey the potbelly pig starts his silly antics, it makes us all laugh. Harmony on the ranch is important and we all interact and function as a family. I like live music, dancing, and hanging out with my friends and my daughters. I love planning events and magical experiences for families. I love seeing a child reach a goal in therapy they didn’t realize was possible. I meditate and pray each morning, always seeking divine guidance for the next steps to take, and the best ways I can serve others. Gratitude has been the key to a joyful life. Each morning I fill a journal page or two with gratitude from the day before.
Anything else you’d like to add?
With each new step, the risks are always accompanied by soul-wrenching fear. Working in Chicago’s inner city in high drug-trafficking neighborhoods, opening my private practice in Danville, founding a not for profit, “Roxy’s House”, beginning animal-assisted speech therapy, or opening Blue Heron Ranch and Retreat Center. Each time, there is the looming fear of failure just over my right shoulder. I always try to go forward anyway, and it is always bumpy and imperfect. I teach my girls that when your heart is singing, your knees may also be trembling. Try to listen to your heart and ignore the knees. Amazing things can happen! We are so excited to open the event center and therapy next month. It seems I’ve been preparing for this for a lifetime.
If you have someone you would like to share,
visit https://forms.gle/deCPiQ1cxn1pDLhZ9
or contact Ashton Greer, City of Danville agreer@cityofdanville.org or
Nicole Van Hyfte, Vermilion Advantage nvanhyfte@vermilionadvantage.com.
