St Jude's ranch for children in Boulder City works to provide a safe, nurturing home for foster children.

Nevada week's Maria Silva joins us now.

And Maria, some of our viewers may be surprised to know that this nonprofit has been helping youth here for six decades.

Nearly six decades.

They are doing amazing work.

Amber, now, back in 1967, their very first resident, Eddie, a boy from Elko, arrived at the ranch.

And since then, they have helped thousands of children.

And now the kind staff and volunteers at St Jude's Ranch for children are on a mission to break the cycle of abuse and neglect, they say, by mending spirits and renewing hope.

We have 40 acres of beautiful land here in Boulder City.

It's just such a special place.

Since 1967.

This special place has helped the thousands of children in the foster care system by offering them a place to call home and caring individual they can call family.

We have ten individualized homes that serve up to 60 children that get to call this their home with a whole array of services to support them, like tutoring and therapy and and just, you know, places for play and and all of the things that help provide hope and healing.

CEO Christina Vela, a longtime social worker, says they work hard to de-stigmatize foster care and what it's like to live at Saint Jude's ranch for children.

I want every young person and every child that's experienced tough times to know that it's not their fault.

And the what's happened to them doesn't define them and that they can live an audacious goal to break that cycle and to go be their best selves.

Saint Jude's Ranch for Children is the only organization in Nevada that has a sibling preservation program.

Every month we provide high quality activities for brothers and sisters that are separated and foster homes to come together and to spend quality time together.

And and we celebrate National Sibling Day.

Once a year, we take kids off to summer camp.

You know, for that summer camp, that is the one time of the whole year that brothers and sisters get to spend five days together.

I feel like me and my siblings got closer.

We had more open conversations with each other.

It's creating those valuable moments with your siblings that you're not really going to get anywhere else.

These are nice job and.

Know Saint Jude's Ranch for Children provides services to children from birth to 18 years of age.

But even after the child ages out of the foster care system at 18, the life changing services continue.

We tend to serve a lot of adolescents that generally don't get adopted.

And so that means we have this incredible responsibility to help prepare kids for the real world, to help them graduate and get them a bank account and job, you know, job experience and how to navigate the world and relationship.

We get to bear witness to incredible changes in young people's lives, and that might just be as simple as small.

It sounds so small.

Just to break the cycle, to have a job, to hold down a job, to work here at Saint John's Ranch for children and pay it forward.

Paying it forward.

A priority for Jana Brown, now 27.

She first arrived at Saint Jude's Ranch for children at 15 and a half.

She is now working as a peer support specialist and shares her increase edible journey in hopes of helping others.

My mom passed away when I was nine, but my aunt, my mom's sister, was just very abusive, like she just her mental health.

And now I look at like back then I thought it was like, she's crazy, you know?

But now I see the way I'm.

I am and the way I help other people.

I just see now that it's just a it was a mental health thing.

And I'm just happy that I was able to initially put myself in the foster care system that like 11 and a half, almost 12.

And I told the state like I didn't even have the attorney like speak for me.

I was like, I want to be a warrior state.

Finding her home and her family here at Saint Jude's ranch for children saved her life.

I feel like if I didn't end up here, I feel like I would be either in jail, either dead.

To be honest, I still get the help and stuff, and I really appreciate it.

Jana you are an inspiration.

I am wishing you only the best and good luck as we head back to college in the near future.

And speaking of college, Saint Jude's Ranch for Children has a scholarship fund available to help current and former students ask for a camp to belong.

The children and their siblings leave for camp next month.

Have fun kiddos.

Know what a valuable.

Camp for them.

I understand that St Jude is also expanding their services to include a healing center for child victims of sex trafficking.

Yeah, Amber, it is a heartbreaking situation right now.

It is a growing problem.

The reality is that sex trafficking continues to grow and there is no residential program in place right now to help these children.

That will change soon.

The healing center will fill that void.

It is being built as we speak and is expected to open its doors next year.

It's located on the same campus in Boulder City.

It will include beautiful homes that look like homes and not like institutions.

The Healing Center will be the only of its kind across the country because it will also have an on site school in partnership with the Clark County School District.

They will have specialized classes like art and music therapy, yoga and gardening to help these beautiful children heal.

And if you go to the camp that is open to the public, it is such a beautiful place and you can see and feel the love again.

It's their family and they are also doing so much to help these kids that when they need it most.

And those renderings are beautiful, beautiful campus for such an important cause.

And real quick, Amber, they are always looking a nonprofit, always looking for volunteers.

So we do have that information o