Dowdle and her husband founded The Shepherd’s Watch Ministries, which offers summer camp to the community, as well as a year-round residential program for at-risk youths ages 13-18, in foster care, on their 60-acre farm. The residential program focuses on teens who will likely age out of foster care without being adopted. The goal is to teach these youths much needed skills to help prepare them for independent living. The Dowdles have foster parented more than 20 youths since 2005, adopting two boys with another adoption in process.