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Congressman Connie Mack was enjoying himself Friday afternoon.

It was a beautiful day in Southwest Florida. He had his two children with him. He was scouting a prime fishing lake while touring a soon-to-be-built youth ranch. And no one was hitting him up for federal funding.

Mack, Bonita Springs Mayor Jay Arend and members of the media were at the site of the formative Liberty Youth Ranch to the east of Interstate 75 and just north of the new Bonita Springs Utilities water plant.

Mack divided his attention between the kids, the lake and Liberty Youth Ranch founder Alan Dimmitt’s detailed plans for the property. But since Mack won’t have to sell those details to his colleagues in Congress, it was no big deal. Republicans, Mack notes, are always saying they’re for less government and more community-based social service. Dimmitt is a guy who lives it.

From the onset more than three years ago, he and his wife, Angela, have had a vision of a faith-based group ranch for neglected and abused children built with private donations and free from the encumbrances of government funding.

Toward that end, they’ve raised more than $3 million to buy the 156 acres next to the interstate. They’ve opened a used furniture store on Old 41 Road, the Upscale Shop, with the goal of generating a third of the money needed to build and run the ranch. They’ve spent two years going through permitting and environmental reviews. And, just recently, they’ve put white rail fencing on the side of the property next to the freeway, the first tangible sign to passers-by that the ranch is taking shape.

Upon meeting Dimmitt and hearing him explain his vision, one of two thoughts spring to mind. Either he’s a hopeless dreamer or he’s up to something.

If he’s up to no good, he’s going about it all wrong. Where any self-respecting charlatan would be secreting millions in a Swiss bank account, or flipping the land for a huge profit and skipping town, Dimmitt is holding firm on the land and pouring more than $1 million into site work that is well under way.

Building pads, road grades and underground utilities stand in evidence that Dimmitt means it when he says he’s building a ranch for 48 neglected, abandoned and mistreated youngsters, similar to the one he grew up on after being orphaned and abused.

As for the notion that Dimmitt’s is wishful thinking, that such a large project is beyond the reach of a committed couple, a small staff and a corps of volunteers and that government has to be involved, it is rapidly losing steam.

Bulldozers and shovels are moving dirt, the Upscale Shop is packed with items looking like they could have just come from a new furniture showroom, prospective donors are walking the property, listening to Dimmitt deliver his pitch for probably the ten-thousandth time, still with the same sincerity and passion as the first.

They are the people whose undivided attention Dimmitt wants because they, not the government, are the ones who will ultimately provide the roughly $5 million he needs to build the first phase of housing to make Liberty Youth Ranch a reality.

Dimmitt sees it as a calling from God, one that he knows will go on the rest of his life.

“We’ll only be successful to the degree the community supports us,” Dimmitt said.

To learn more about Liberty Youth Ranch, visit LibertyYouthRanch.org or call 597-7070.

E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com