“Part of our mission is to help people not just define their lives by what they can’t do—drugs and alcohol—but what they’re going to be about from here on out,” says Melissa Stuebing, Counselor at A.F. Whitsitt Center.
Helping make those life changes and offering positive experiences during in-patient stays at the Center is enhanced by positive social contact within and outside the facility.
Because addiction is a disease that affects everything we are, treatment needs to take place in an environment conducive to recovery—and nature provides part of the solution.
In the mid-90s a gazebo was built on the Whitsitt grounds—then Upper Shore Mental Health Center— and it had become an integral part of every patient’s recovery.
Outdoor time for group sessions, recreation and exercise are critical ingredients to Whitsitt’s holistic approach to recovery. Unfortunately time and weather took its toll until the structure, partially fallen, had to be taken down. Last April volunteers from Bayside H.O.Y.A.S, Hope Fellowship, the recovery community and staff removed the rest of the structure.
The recession and budget restraints, plus changes in how the facility has to do business, have left the residential treatment center with limited funds.
Now, Andrew Pons. Clinical Director of A.F. Whitsitt Center and Melissa Stuebing, Primary Counselor for Kent County Crisis Bed, are on a mission to replace the gazebo with a more cost effective, open air pavilion and have begun the process of making appeals to county commissioners and town councils in the five counties the facility represents.
With a total estimate of approximately $19,000 for a 22 x 26 ft cement pad and structure, the center is on its way with generous gifts in kind and material—labor to build the pad and the concrete—from the Town and Gillespie & Sons. Professionals from the community have also stepped up to help assemble the structure.
Still, A.F. Whitsitt Center needs more help to meet their goal and is seeking tax-deductible donations.
By helping them build their recovery community, we are helping ourselves continue to build ours.
Andrew Pons and Melissa Stuebing, discuss the A. F. Whitsitt pavilion project in the following video.
To help support this project, donations may be sent to:
A.F. Whitsitt Center, 300 Scheeler Rd., Chestertown, MD 21620.
Notate check with “Pavilion Project.”
To find out more about the A.F. Whitsitt Center inpatient addictions services, call 410-778-6404.
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