Fresh Start for opioid addicts
WEST LOGAN, W.Va. — On June 5, Brittany Burgess weaved her way through a garden, stopping between flatbeds of more than a dozen types of plants — strawberries, tomatoes, squash, potatoes and onions, to name a few.
The 25-year-old Logan native became addicted to opioids three years ago, but August will mark a year of sobriety for her. Today, she's enrolled in college classes at Southern Community and Technical College, she holds a steady job, and she's one of more than 30 Southern West Virginians who are using farming, through a program called Fresh Start, to help them during their path to recovery.
“I got in a little bit of trouble last year; I got court ordered to be in the (Southwestern Regional Day Report Center), but now I'm here,” Burgess said, gesturing to the rows of fresh fruits and vegetables sprouting around her. “If I wasn't here, I'd be dead. I'd be in jail, or I'd be dead. I truly believe that after what was the worst three years of my life.”
Fresh Start is currently operating in four Southern West Virginia counties: Boone, Lincoln, Logan and Mingo. Participants, many of whom come from the Day Report Center, can be there voluntarily or use the program to fill ordered community service hours. The one thing they have in common is their struggle with addiction to opioids.
“This isn't, you know, a punishment. It's a new way we're trying to get them more involved during the recovery process,” said Michelle Akers, director of the Southwestern Regional Day Report Center. “No one is forced to be here, and obviously it's not for everyone, but the ones that do choose to come, to stick with it, they love it. Their eyes light up when they get to the garden each week.”
Participants meet to harvest and tend the garden each Wednesday. Chad Akers, Michelle's husband, volunteers as a mentor with the program and leads it each week, with help from Day Report Center staffers. Chad Akers' favorite part of the program is the look on participants' faces when they see something sprouting.
“It's like, pride, pure pride. This is something they put in the ground, watered, watched, and then it's in their hands,” Chad Akers said. “Their eyes just widen, and you can't wait to see that reaction again.”
The program started after Michelle Akers, through the Day Report Center, applied for and received a federal grant for communities affected by the opioid epidemic. Now those who participate — referred to as students — can earn college credits through a partnership with Southern Community and Technical College while rebuilding connections with their communities as they pursue recovery.“We really try to emphasize that part of recovery — community connectedness,” Michelle Akers said. “That's how you get people to see what else they can do, when they're accepted back.”The garden in Logan, which sits on a plot of land behind the newly opened satellite office for the Logan County Health Department, started last year. This summer, it will see its first graduate, a man named Everett (who requested his last name not be used for this article).For Everett, gardening has brought a sense of comfort to his life — something he's rarely experienced since first using opioids years ago. Now, through connections he's made at Fresh Start, he's looking at starting his own small business.That's another aspect of Fresh Start: Students are provided with a support system, between the staff and each other, both inside and outside the program. One student, Thomas Tolliver, was inspired by conversations with Chad Akers and others to raise money for childhood cancer in honor of his nephew, Jay Sean, who died last year at the age of four. He sold more than 50 shirts for Relay For Life with help from those at Fresh Start.“I think I would have done that either way, here or not, but they made it easier, and they gave me the idea,” Tolliver said. “The people here, they're always down to listen to our ideas or support them. It makes it easier to do those things.”One of the main goals of the Day Report Center, and of Fresh Start, is to help people in recovery become reconnected with their communities, which can be a difficult feat sometimes since negative rhetoric about drug addiction or the recovery communities can dominate conversations, Akers said.When people are no longer in active addiction, they have a lot of free time they don't know what to do with, Michelle Akers said. While that time was once used for using drugs, it can now be used to pursue activities they didn't have the interest, or motivation, to try previously — like gardening. “This was definitely not something I would have done before. I didn't know a thing about gardening or farming,” Everett said. “Now I wish I could do more of it. It's fun, it's calming, and it feels good to know that the work we do each week is maybe helping others out there.”The produce harvested from Fresh Start in Logan is given to the Hungry Lamb food pantry, in the building as the health department's office.
