Livestock Program For Special Ed Students Changing Lives

The Santa Barbara County Fair is in full swing, which means hundreds of local kids with various youth agricultural programs are at the Santa Maria Fairpark proudly showing the animals they’ve been raising for the past few months.

That also includes a group of students from the Santa Maria Valley that are part of the “Warrior Goat Program.”

“It basically unifies special needs students and regular education students, and we teach them how to raise a goat, take care of it, and then they get to auction off their goat,” said founder Kiera Van Patten, a senior-to-be at Righetti High School.

The program was created in 2014, but was actually an idea Van Patten came up with she was in the 7th grade.

“One day I was thinking what do special needs students that don’t like sports do, and I thought, what if they raised goats?” said Van Patten. “I was raised knowing that those kids could do anything they wanted and I just needed to reach out and help them a little bit, just a little guidance.”

Van Patten says the kids in the program learn everything necessary in raising a goat for the fair, including feeding, washing and showing.

Starting in March, students, along with their mentors, learn valuable skills and responsibilities, giving them an increased sense of independence.

Raising a goat is a big commitment. Students are with the animals two hours a day, four days a week.

“Goats are my thing and I love doing it,” said student Kaitlyn Sebedra. “I don’t like doing lambs, I don’t like doing sheep, I don’t like doing cows, I don’t like doing pigs, I’m just sticking with goats.”

Now in its third year, the Warrior Goat Program has been a big success with everyone who has been involved.

“It’s fun, you get to learn new things and new people and make new friends,” said student Danielle Torres.

Currently, the Warrior Goat Program has 12 students, including six from Righetti High School, three from Santa Maria High School, two from Orcutt Sisquoc Grange and one advanced student.

“This fair week has really changed my life,” said Sebedra. “It has changed my behavior and stuff.”

While the program has been tremendously popular for the special education students, the same can be said of the student mentors as well.

“It’s been wonderful actually,” said mentor Kaili Villanueva. “Going to the farm after school with these kids is the highlight of my day. I’ll have rough days at school and the minute I get there with them, everything changes, they have completely changed my life.”

The Warrior Goat Program has achieved so much success, it is now being used as a model for other schools to create their own similar program.

Van Patten says that has already happened at schools in Bakersfield, Texas and Arizona. On Thursday, representatives fWillows, Calif. were in town to look at the program as well.

Van Patten would like to thank the community for supporting the program, and most of all, the students.

“We have so many people money and goats and at the auction, it goes crazy, and they buy kids goats for large amounts of money just to help out and support and keep this program running,” said Van Patten.

There is no cost for students to participate, and the kids receive half of the profit when the animals are auctioned off.