Former University of Alabama quarterback Brodie Croyle, president and CEO of Big Oak Ranch, said construction will soon be complete on new apartment-style homes in Vestavia Hills for college-age residents who grew up at the ranch.

“This is 50 years in the making,” Brodie Croyle said. “Big Oak started 50 years ago in a farmhouse with five boys.”

Croyle took over running Big Oak Ranch from his father, founder John Croyle, who also played football at the University of Alabama and started Big Oak Ranch as a Christian ministry with encouragement from Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and other supporters from his playing days.

Big Oak will mark its 50th anniversary in 2024.

By fall of next year, about 20 students will be living in the apartments adjacent to a clubhouse for residents. The new development in Vestavia will be called Ascend Village, a community of Big Oak Ranch, at 5100 Cahaba River Road. Students are required to work on trade school or college education while living at the home.

“We’ve got awesome kids that really have seized the opportunity,” Croyle said.

Scarlet Stearns, who moved to Big Oak Girls Ranch when she was 10, graduated from Samford University in spring 2023 through the program. Now she helps run it, serving as resident guide to the Ascend students.

“Ascend does such a great job of just teaching you life skills,” including financial management, spiritual guidance and building community, Stearns said.

The Ascend program started four years ago, and the students currently live in the Crown at Cahaba River apartments behind the Ascend Village.

“There are 9 or 10 college or trade schools within 20 minutes of this location,” Croyle said.

Big Oak runs a Boys Ranch near Gadsden and a Girls Ranch near Springville where foster parents raise children in homes. The children living at the ranches are between the ages of six and 18, and come from situations of abuse, neglect, and abandonment.

The Ascend students work jobs and must put up a $1,000 deposit to enter the program, which they get back when they finish.

The program helps them apply for scholarships and attain funding for their education.

“Our kids get to graduate debt-free,” said Croyle’s wife, Kelli. “Whatever educational pathway they choose, they’re completing their education, whether it’s associate’s, bachelor’s degree or a trade school certificate, debt-free.”

Donors have underwritten the construction costs and program costs of Ascend Village. For more information, go to BigOak.org.

“We take no state or federal funds,” Brodie Croyle said. “We’re 100 percent privately funded.”

See also: Big Oak Ranch opens two new homes for girls

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