DICKINSON — Singer/songwriter Rhett Walker and others will be performing as part of gospel concert in Dickinson this weekend.
It's a fundraiser for Home On The Range, a therapeutic youth placement center.
Josh Hevlik, pastoral assistant at Home On The Range, from Wibaux, Montana, explained Home On The Range, as a place for “at risk youth that really haven’t been pulled out of the situation. They come here with a lot of drug addictions, just incredible trauma. We try to help heal, restore, educate, do a lot of therapy work, spiritual work, to get these kids where they can go back to their communities and be successful.”
The center is similar to Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in Minot.
“We’re very similar. We’re different institutions, but we’re a QRTP which very similar placement situation,” according to Hevlik.
Hevlik expressed his reason for doing events like this, “One thing I love to do for my kids at Home On The Range is I love to bring in outside resources, whether it’s BMX Riders, whether it’s Christian music, to give them that environment to realize that God is good. That’s one of the ways to bring them healing is to get them in that atmosphere.”
“The money goes to our Spiritual Department at Home On The Range, which allows us to reach out and bring more of these events to our facility or just to our kids at Home On The Range,” Hevlik said.
Home On The Range does events right on the campus on a quarterly basis. “This one in Dickinson, because I’ve been working with agencies about concerts, they reached out to me about bringing an event to the Dickinson area, so it was on their route. So I took them up and just called it a fundraiser,” said Hevlik.
Hevlik also explained some other events that Home On The Range puts on, “Our major event, this year we’re having a, we call it, ‘Praise in the Badlands,’ it’s at the Medora amphitheater. We’re going to be having a concert there August 8, and that’s always a bigger name artist that comes and we get thousands of people that show up.”
Home On The Range is also putting on a Golf Scramble at Bully Pulpit in Medora, North Dakota on June 26, 2022. “That would just be, probably a direct email, they can just reach out to Home On The Range if they want to get involved with that,” said Hevlik.
“[The Dickinson concert] is a little bit smaller stature [than the Medora concert], I mean the Medora amphitheater holds quite a few people where this one’s gonna be held at Evangelical Bible Church which holds about 500 people, so it’s a little smaller stature. But same purpose,” Hevlik described.
There is also a similar difference in cost. “When we get the tours where they’re just traveling from community to community, it’s gonna be a lot cheaper to bring them in, because they’re traveling through the area," Hevlik said. "So I got them for heck of a lot cheaper than they would have been individually.”
Hevlik explained the usefulness of these types of events. “[They help], not just with donations, but then you meet a lot of cool people that wanna help out these kids in certain different ways, whether it’s financially or time.”
Hevlik also described the center’s need for volunteers. “We are always looking for a volunteer base where we do outreach events and what not, but we’re doing pretty well on this one [in Dickinson], but we’re always willing to take more for the future, because we’re always looking for volunteers.”
The Dickinson concert is Friday, April 2, 2022. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, with the concert starting at 7:00 p.m. MDT. Adult tickets are $30, and youth tickets (17 and under) are $15. There will also be a be a Meet and Greet at 6:00 p.m. for an extra $30. Tickets will also be available at the door for an extra $5.
“We got more to sell,” said Hevlik. “A little lower than what I want, but what I realized about North Dakota is that people are kinda last minute.”
For more information and to buy tickets, go to the Home on the Range website.
