Leadership Shawano County hosts recovery celebration

Recovery was at the forefront of a Franklin Park celebration on May 1.

Leadership Shawano County hosted a recovery celebration and awareness walk in the hopes of educating more people in the community about addiction recovery and mental health resources.

“This is our first annual recovery awareness walk,” said Vicki Weaver, a member of Leadership Shawano County. “It is an event to help recognize the people that are struggling with addiction and to honor those who have lost family members that have struggled with addiction.”

The idea came from employees of the Shawano County Drug Treatment Court — a program that aims to treat non-violent drug offenders and help them overcome their addictions outside of prison.

“Members of the drug court came to us, did a presentation and asked if we wanted to host this,” said Kevin Barkow, another member of Leadership Shawano County.

The event included resources so visitors could learn more about addiction and recovery, as well as an awareness walk for participants to trek around Shawano. More than just a walk, however, Leadership Shawano County also used this event to raise funds for a recovery house for drug court participants.

“We need community support for that,” said Shawano County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy George Lenzner.

Barkow estimated that close to 300 people were signed up to participate in the walk and help spread awareness of addiction recovery.

“We want people to know it’s OK to ask for help and to help those who are struggling with addiction,” said Weaver. “We want people to know that the community will support you.”

The event featured many organizations that sent representatives to talk with visitors about addiction and recovery.

“I am working a table here for ThedaCare Health in Shawano and trying to spread the word for the behavior services that we offer,” said ThedaCare Substance Abuse Counselor Vince Long. “This is a really underserved community. The rural areas are really something that we are trying to focus on.”

Debbie Passehl, who was representing the Fresh Hope Group in Shawano, said she was trying to bring awareness of mental illness support during the event.

“This event is very important to me,” said Passehl. “As time has gone on through COVID-19, there are things that have come up in people’s lives that have pushed them to situations or thinking patterns that are not healthy for them.”

She said she hopes participants come away from the event with the message that they are never alone in their struggles.

“I want people to leave here knowing that there is help,” said Passehl. “They need to reach out to others and find the different outlets that they may need.”

Weaver said this cause is important to Leadership Shawano County because it shows that business leaders support the initiative.

“This is a community effort,” said Weaver. “In order to help recovering addicts, it takes a community. It is more than just resources; different businesses need to be involved.”

“I never realized that drug and alcohol addiction was such a big thing in Shawano,” added Barkow. “You don’t think of Shawano as being that community, but it is a bigger problem than some people realize.”

Lenzner spoke on those bigger addiction problems from the sheriff’s department’s point of view.

“In 2016, we knew we had a drug problem that was rising in Shawano County,” he said. “A few of us met and talked about different programs that we could implement. One of the things that we came up with was drug court.”

Lenzner said that since the drug court was implemented in Shawano County, the results have been positive.

“We have had 25 participants, and right now we have 13,” said Lenzner. “What works with drug court is that it keeps people accountable. If you screw up and do drugs, you end up back in prison. Before drug court, we knew that 95% of the people who went to jail for drugs would get out and start using again. We were also finding out that 80% who were in treatment went back to using drugs.”

As the community continues to raise funds for a place to house drug court participants after their treatment, Lenzner said he hopes local residents will educate themselves to better understand the challenges these individuals are facing.

“Please take the time to learn about the disease of addiction,” Lenzner said.

lreimer@newmedia-wi.com