November 7, 2019
Dear Supporters of Recovery Revolution,
The following is Recovery Revolution, Inc.’s (RRI) Annual Report (July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019) which will highlight accomplishments and changes throughout this past fiscal year. RRI continues to maintain nonprofit status and has a Full License to provide a “Drug Free” Outpatient Program and Partial Hospitalization by the PA Department of Health, Division of Drug and Alcohol Program Licensure.
Northampton County Drug and Alcohol in partnership with Recovery Revolution, Inc. opened a Recovery Center in the Slate Belt to benefit our local residents in September 2014. This has provided the Slate Belt community access to more resources, the ability to obtain referrals for assistance, and participate in many different types of programming.
I would like to acknowledge how courageous our clients are just walking through the front door for the first time to begin to take the steps towards healthier living. I would like to express my immense pride in our staff members that make Recovery Revolution a place where our clients feel safe and accepted. Finally, let me express my deepest gratitude to you, our community supporters, for your unwavering dedication to our mission. I hope that you are pleased with how our agency is performing and evolving. I trust that you share our excitement about the role that RRI plays and will continue to play in benefiting this area for many years to come. May peace and joy be yours & thank you for the opportunity to serve a growing need in this community.
Sincerely,
Jana Morris, MS, CCS, CAADC, LPC
Executive Director
Recovery Revolution History of Program
Recovery Revolution, Inc. (RRI) was created in June 2005 to serve the Slate Belt Region of Northampton County of Pennsylvania. This is a geographic area with a high need for our services, yet has traditionally lacked professional addiction treatment services. The Northampton County Slate Belt Region is very low on the economic scale and lacks public transportation options. The population could not afford to pay full prices for substance abuse services provided by for-profit organizations or be able to transport themselves to larger populated areas (such as Easton or Bethlehem) where other organizations exist. A viable and affordable alternative was needed and RRI was created to meet the community’s needs. RRI being a public charity non-profit organization is able to provide substance abuse services to a population that is most in need or is mandated to attend treatment. RRI meets this need both financially because fees are based on a sliding scale and locally because of little to no travel time. Our staff is highly dedicated to our mission and provides professional, ethical and client-driven service. We received our Federal IRS 501(c) 3 non-profit status on August 4, 2006. Recovery Revolution, Inc. is licensed as a Drug-Free Outpatient Facility by the Pennsylvania Department of Health (since November 2005) through the Division of Drug and Alcohol Program Licensure. This enables us to provide both outpatient treatment and intensive outpatient treatment to a maximum of 175 adolescents and adults (adolescents and adults are treated separately). We have also been approved for Partial Hospitalization by Program Licensing to serve 20 people at any given time.
Recovery Revolution Inc. has a contract with Colonial Academy, Easton High School, Easton Academy, and Wilson High School to provide outpatient substance abuse treatment services directly during their school day. The schools do not provide funding for these services, however, they furnish a confidential place to provide quality treatment on-premise. One of the biggest barriers to adolescent treatment is transportation which the in-school program directly addresses these problems. The success of these services ——–is partly in services have been a success due to the adolescent population in Northampton County having many barriers to treatment.
Current Services offered and Yearly Statistics
Recovery Revolution Inc. offers addictions treatment services on an outpatient, intensive outpatient, partial (1-18 hours per week) basis at 109 Broadway in Bangor, PA. Our hours of operation are Monday-Friday from 9:00 am-8:00 pm. During the intake interview, each new client completes an assessment with a highly trained/credentialed professional. This assessment involves gathering information; identifying level of care needs, and includes a urine drug screen for a comprehensive evaluation. We provide services to adolescents and adults. If they meet the criteria for outpatient, intensive outpatient or partial treatment services, we offer individual and group counseling sessions. Individual sessions are scheduled with the client’s primary counselor. In addition, our professional and caring staff aids in transfer to higher levels of care, such as inpatient or detoxification facilities. To treat our clients in a holistic manner, we also offer referrals to intensive case managers, medical professionals, recovery centers, mental health facilities, or domestic violence centers, to name a few.
We offer many adult groups to accommodate the special needs of our clients. Throughout this year we offered 12 adult groups specializing in many different topics and theme, such as gender-specific, advanced recovery and healthy relationship groups. We also have a separate adolescent group that meets once a week, when we have enough adolescent clients in house.
In 2009, Recovery Revolution became a cornerstone of the Slate Belt Area by purchasing a building in the downtown area. This site has allowed us to expand services by hiring more counselors, facilitating groups simultaneously, and even providing a much-needed space to our alumni. Recovery Revolution continues to gain support through grants and donations. Two Rivers Health and Wellness Foundation has supported the expansion of our school programming for the past 10 years.
We offer family sessions and encourage anyone significant in the client’s life to also be involved with the treatment process. At the end of fiscal year 2008, we started help/support for families and friends of addicts through their own intervention group. RRI’s program has been well received and well attended. The “Parents, Partners, and Loved Ones” seminar is 6 weeks in length and addresses issues such as codependency, enabling, support groups, as well as education regarding the disease of addiction. A participant, named Wendy, shared her experience and said, “Without a doubt, if I hadn’t taken this course, my family and I wouldn’t be as healthy as we are right now. If you are willing to do one thing to help yourself and your family, TAKE THIS COURSE!” We also provide individual family codependency treatment at a self-pay/sliding scale rate.
RRI continues to recognize that our clients were lacking social activities and events outside of 12-step meetings. We continued our partnership with Northampton County Drug and Alcohol to run “A Clean Slate,” Slate Belt’s own Recovery Center to benefit our local residents. The Northampton County Drug and Alcohol Division is committed to supporting opportunities for residents of Northampton County in recovery as they commit to a lifelong process of change that permits them to make healthy choices and improve the quality of his or her life. “A Clean Slate” is located across the street from Recovery Revolution at 100 S. 1st Street in Downtown Bangor. The grand opening was on Tuesday, September 16, 2014. A Clean Slate’s hours of operation are Monday: 10am-2pm Tuesday: 4pm-8pm Wednesday: 4pm-8pm Thursday/Friday: 10am-5pm Saturday: 10am- 2pm. A Clean Slate’s mission is to provide recovery resources and referrals to the Slate Belt community. The Center welcomes all men, women, and teenagers who in anyway have been affected by the disease of addiction. The staff at A Clean Slate are knowledgeable about recovery and can assist people in finding treatment programs and/or services appropriate to their needs. A Clean Slate does not offer any counseling services and is not a treatment program. The Center has a variety of recovery and self-help material for individuals seeking help, family members seeking help or those that are in a recovery process to help sustain their own recovery. A Clean Slate also provides a computer lab and business resources for the recovering community to help with resume building, job searching, letter writing, attending an online 12-step meeting, completing medical assistance applications and other recovery-related services. A Clean Slate is not affiliated with any specific 12-step group, such as Alcoholic Anonymous (AA), however, these meetings may be held on site. Recovery Revolution has opened all our past activities to anyone that wants to come from the community. In addition, A Clean Slate offered partnerships with local agencies for different programing: Yoga and Mindfulness Classes (Shanti Project), Life Coaching and Art Journaling and Community Art Night (Bloom Bangor), tax preparation (AARP), Preparing for College (Northampton Community College, Healthy Food Choices (Penn State Extension) and several others. A Clean Slate has hosted and participated in several open houses and drug awareness days.
In the fiscal year of 2018-2019, RRI treated 392 active clients in our main office location and all of the school locations to include adolescents and adults and completed an additional 28 assessments, which warranted subsequent referrals.
As stated above, RRI provides outpatient drug and alcohol services for several schools in Northampton County during the school year of 2018-2019. We were able to provide services to adolescents to include assessments, individual and group therapy as needed throughout the school year. We offer these services during school hours so that adolescents can access the drug and alcohol treatment that they need. Recovery Revolution saw an average of 120 students throughout this fiscal year for outpatient services.
RRI maintains our commitment to the population we serve by hosting numerous events as well as participating in other organizations community affairs. We set up information tables at local events and participate in collaborative efforts to strengthen the community. We offer our extremely knowledgeable staff to local schools and community events to speak about what is going on in the Slate Belt regarding addiction problems. September is National Recovery Month. We once again celebrated the month by hosting “Lunch and Learns” on three consecutive Tuesdays. We had facilitators that gave information and education to the community regarding addiction and recovery. RRI also hosted our 10th Annual Recovery Day in March, which is a speaker marathon lasting 7 hour. “A Clean Slate” hosted both of these events.
The 10th Annual “Steps to Recovery” comedy social was held on April 13, 2019. We would like to thank our event sponsors: Silver Level Sponsor – Farda Foundation Bronze level sponsor: Merchants Bank, Ultra-Poly, Hopesprings Community of Faith, Pyramid Healthcare, Easton Kiwanis, Pocono Mountain Recovery Center, CMG, Inc., The Retreat, Bangor VFW Post 739, Banyan Treatment, American Legion Post 346, Pocono Mountain Recovery Center and Bangor Elks and Methodist Services. The event was held at Easton Area Middle School and we collaborated with the Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) at Easton to sell tickets and raise money. The event started with a high-end tricky tray (baskets were worth $50-$150) and a “Classic Cuisine and Culinary Treats” Food Sampling Extravaganza. Twelve different restaurants/caterers were on location presenting their “Signature Dish” from 6:30-8:00 pm. Culinary Delights from Catering By Angel, Wawa, Texas Roadhouse, Domino’s, Kirkridge, Outback Steakhouse, and Pies to Die For. This year, all of the vendors that had tables also brought desserts and other items to eat. After over 315 people’s stomachs were full, it was time to get them laughing. Since it was the 10th year, we decided to hire three recovering comedians. The opener this year was Ritu Chandra. Our Feature was Joe Fernandes and our headliner was Liz Russo. The comedians kept the room laughing with their fast-paced comedy. The post-show chatter about their performance was overwhelmingly positive. Many corporate sponsors, advertisers, and product donors made this event possible. Since all the surrounding communities were so generous, we were able to cover all our overhead costs prior to the event. Tickets to the event were $25 and were considered 100% tax-deductible. RRI successfully raised over $14,000 which was put towards a scholarship fund for clients that are unable to pay for treatment services. We gave a donation to the Easton SADD students for the effort they put into the fundraising. We would like to acknowledge and express our deepest gratitude to all who attended and supported this event in any way. Our board has decided to keep two comedians and will be partnering with Liz Russo, who is a local comedian who attended Easton High School. She will assist with obtaining the comedians and help with marketing. We are excited about our partnership. It was also decided to move the fundraiser back to October. This means that there will not be an annual fundraiser during next Fiscal year. The date is not selected for this event. This was our 6th year at participating in the Highmark for A Healthy Community Walk. This year we raised over $6500 to support client care.
Funding to allow residents to receive local treatment has always had its challenges. This year, however, for the first time since the contract was acquired in 2005 from Northampton County Drug and Alcohol Division, Recovery Revolution was restricted from receiving an increase in funding for new clients that are not covered by health insurance. This impacted several residents and students in schools who were unable to travel to the other providers which are 20+ miles away. Recovery Revolution, as the only local provider, was also negatively impacted by this and responded by giving more people this past year free treatment than ever before as a response to the lack of funding. We are the only licensed treatment center in the Slate Belt area.
Recovery Revolution is anticipating an exciting upcoming fiscal year due to our plans for expanding services to places of need, hiring new staff members, creating a larger awareness regarding addiction and recovery in the community all the while providing quality treatment to the population we serve.
Company Financials
We utilized the same firm as last year: Campbell, Rappold & Yurasits LLP. They are an accounting firm practicing out of Allentown, PA and they audited our financial records to provide tax compliance services for our federal and state reporting. Our total revenue for the year was $608,409 while our operating expenses for the year were $631,816 which netted operational deficit of $23,407 for the year. We currently have long-term debt of $56,324. This debt is a conglomeration of our start-up loan and building mortgage.
Board of Directors
Our Fiscal Year 2018-2019 Board of Directors were as follows:
George Ward, President
Educator/Retired Business Owner
Patrice Farda
Restaurant Owner
Rick Martin, Treasurer
Retired School Administrator
Alyson Dellaria, Secretary
Domestic Violence Advocate
Diane Huschke
Business Owner/Retired RN
Clint Newton Domestic
Architect
Dan Gagnon
Management