Dana Howard got much more than he requested, and he and the other board members of the Building Bridges Foundation are ecstatic about it.

Allow fellow board member Dave Kleintop to explain. "We have pasture here in Anderson Farm, and we had excess grass," he said. "I have a connection with Hartland Farms (in Quarryville)."

Hartland Farms owner Ben Flahart donated four young steers to Building Bridges that weigh about 375 pounds each. Dave Anderson, the owner of Anderson Farm, bought six more for a total of 10. "They brought them (to Building Bridges) back in April, and we fed them on the pasture until January to about 1,250 pounds average," said Kleintop, who lives in Peach Bottom.

"They're not heavy enough to go to market yet," Kleintop said. "They need to be about 1,500 pounds. Ben came and picked them up and took him down to his feed lot in Quarryville, and he's going to (bring them up) to 1,500 pounds. He's going to charge us a nominal fee to feed them, and then when he sells the steers at 1,500 pounds, he's going to pay us for the value of the steers minus the feed that he put into them. Four sales will be a 100% donation, and the other six will be the balance of what Dave (Anderson) paid for and what the market value is minus the feed, so we'll have a substantial donation."

In the spring of 2026, Flahart is going to bring 16 more young stock to Building Bridges and the organization and the farm will repeat the process.

Howard joked, "The whole thing started because all I wanted was some hamburger. I figured if we raised one cow on the property, I could get some hamburger for the (Vets') Cafe. Now we're going to have a cattle drive going here pretty soon."

Building Bridges Foundation at Anderson Farm is located at 230 Indian Hill Road, Conestoga. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the mission of providing support for veterans in the community. "We do that two ways," said Joe Campbell, Building Bridges' director of operations. "We have an equine therapy program for veterans with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries and other psychosocial issues, and that involves individual kinds of therapy along with they're being treated at the VA."

Anderson, a veteran who owns Anderson Farm, donated the land for Building Bridges about 10 years ago. "For a variety of reasons, he wanted to open up specifically the equine therapy program," said Campbell, who lives in Manheim Township. "We have five thoroughbreds. They're retired racehorses. All the therapy is at no charge to the veterans. The equine therapy program involves a series of weekly visits with a person who's trained in equine therapy, and through their techniques they help veterans deal with the stressors that they have in their life."

Building Bridges is also home to the Vets' Cafe, which is open Thursdays from 8 a.m. to noon. "The Vets' Cafe started when one of the vets suggested a weekly get-together, and it's grown from five people to where we often see anywhere between 65 and 90 people a week now," Howard said. "(Veterans) can come here and have free coffee, doughnuts, and once a month we do a breakfast, and it's at no charge to them."

The Vets' Cafe has become an important part of Building Bridges. "It is not technically therapy, but the camaraderie and sense of belonging that exists here is very powerful, and we have new people coming in almost every week to visit with us," Campbell said.

Howard stated that people want to be where everybody knows your name. "A lot of our vets are isolated," he said. "It's loneliness and isolation. From that standpoint, I think we do a stellar job here. We are in the process of getting another equine therapist, so we can do that one-on-one counseling that has been life changing for many, many people here."

Campbell added, "We're getting more younger veterans, and that's one of the missions that we have is to expand this so that the people who were in Iraq and Afghanistan can use the facilities here. We are also what's known as the community access point through the Veterans Affairs. There are about a 1,000 of these throughout the country, and this is something that the Veterans Affairs started doing 15 or 20 years ago to get into the community rather than being just a big hospital 40 miles away from here. We've contracted with them, and they have representatives here every Thursday as well."

For more information, go to http://www.buildingbridgesfoundation.org. "This has grown from something small," said Campbell. "It's still intimate. It's still very personal. It's still very community-based, but things like raising this beef and having a number of other fundraisers that we do throughout the year (are important). It's getting this to the point where we can consider a presence in the community 10 years from now and 15 years from now by doing things like this. That takes Dave (Anderson's) generosity. He planted the seed, and we've now, for lack of a better word, poured on the manure, and it's growing."