Central Oregon Veterans Ranch, a local nonprofit serving veterans by creating connections and helping them find purpose, announced this month that it has finalized a leadership transition that it hopes will cultivate stability and maintain the organization’s mission.
COVR is a 19-acre working ranch that allows veterans a safe space to heal and build camaraderie by combining agriculture, peer support and mental health resources. Veterans can show up, without having to make an appointment, to talk, relax or work on the farm alongside other veterans.
Over the summer, COVR underwent several transitions with its administrative team. Heather Martin, the organization’s previous interim executive director, was appointed as the new full-time executive director.
After COVR worked to secure funding to fill certain roles in a full-time capacity, Martin joined as a full-time employee in February. During this transition, changes on the nonprofit’s board were occurring simultaneously.
Zachary Bass, current Redmond Airport director, is now serving as the new board president and Angela Jones, a veteran with a background in peer support, is the new vice president.
“We were interested in getting some new folks… just new perspectives,” Martin told the Source Weekly.
With these changes, the organization is hoping to be better stewards of its resources, and more committed than ever to its mission and the things that matter the most within the organization — agricultural therapy and peer support.
This year, the ranch has doubled its growing spaces, allowing it to sell more of the produce that veterans help grow. The ranch is also working to build relationships with other veteran organizations so its produce gets back into the hands of veterans.
“We’ll be putting together produce boxes for veterans. We’ll be providing those to Central Oregon Veterans Outreach, who will be utilizing those to take out to some of the homeless encampments, where we see a lot of veterans,” Martin said.
The nonprofit also has a full-time peer-support worker and has expanded services to help veterans manage symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other service-related stressors.
While the nonprofit doesn’t get federal funding, it wants to support veterans as much as possible with the resources it has. Especially, Martin said, with cuts to federal veteran services, like Veterans Affairs.
“With 70,000 people being cut from the VA and resources being pulled back… now more than ever, veterans are going to need a safe place, a place to go to talk about getting services, connecting and just looking for that camaraderie,” Martin said.
According to a March 11 release from more than 20 U.S. senators, including Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, the VA stands to lose “up to 83,000 employees, including 20,000 veterans.”
With the transition behind them, COVR hopes to best serve veterans by continuing to offer consistency and community to those who participate.
“Isolation kills. American veterans make up about 6% of our adult population, but account for 20% of all suicides in America. That’s about 18 veterans a day,” Martin told the Source Weekly. “Sometimes that’s because they don’t have anyone to talk to, anywhere to be, and we give them a space that doesn’t feel formal.”
This article appears in The Source Weekly March 13, 2025.
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