Dear Family and Friends,
During this season of reflection and fellowship, we are truly grateful for each of you and your sustained support of the Ben Lucas Foundation. Your generosity and kindness continue to stand in the gap not just for our loss, but also for many families and individuals still fighting through addiction. Because of your help and partnership, we have donated over $30k in the past two years and are close to reaching our goal of raising $50k by the end of 2018!
Thank you so much for your contributions, prayers, and support. We are encouraged to pursue increasingly greater goals as we strive to meet our mission of celebrating Ben’s legacy and continue his fight against addiction.
In 2017, we partnered with a new organization, Life of Purpose, and continue to invest in our partnerships with FAVOR and the ARCHway Institute Hope Fund. At the end of this newsletter, we encourage you to read a letter from Ben Jones at Life of Purpose, who shares personal client stories from the 3 scholarships we provided.
Your contributions will continue to support these organizations and their missions in 2018. From financial assistance to recovery coaching, here are several highlights from these organizations made possible by your outpouring of support:
Life of Purpose
LOP provides intensive outpatient treatment, academically focused aftercare, and recovery housing on university campuses. They typically work with 17 – 29 year olds, who are pursuing a high school diploma or obtaining a college degree. LOP recently announced its newest location in New Jersey opening January 2018, which marks its 4th location in the US (FL, TN, and TX).
ARCHway Institute
The ARCHway Institute Hope Fund provides financial assistance to individuals seeking recovery, providing individual scholarships to recovery programs vetted by the organization. The Fund has raised over $80k to date with a $250k goal over the next 5 years. In 2017, ARCHway provided $41k in recovery scholarships to 84 people and directly helped 6,300 families.
FAVOR
Faces and Voices of Recovery (FAVOR) provides an innovative response to the suffering caused by addiction for over 5,000 new individuals in Upstate South Carolina every year. Since 2013, FAVOR has provided over 40,000 hours of recovery coaching and engaged over 17,258 individuals and family members in FAVOR programming.
We are continually honored and humbled by your contributions, support, and prayer for the Ben Lucas Foundation and those who might otherwise fight alone.
Merry Christmas,Brandon, Bynum, David, and Will
Letter from Life of Purpose Executive Director, Ben Jones, on their clients that we supported in 2017:
Since our opening in October of 2016, we have had the opportunity to see the lives of many people change for the better. We are continuously assisting our clients with moving forward, both in their recovery and a successful future. It was a pleasure to work with the Ben Lucas Foundation in allowing people the resources needed for quality substance use disorder treatment. I have included both our positive and negative outcomes of the clients that have benefited from your donations. Thank you for your generous donations, they really do save lives.
Client 1 – This client did not have any financial support from his family, which would have made it difficult for him to attend our program. The donation from the Ben Lucas Foundation combined with our assistance on the housing aspect of treatment gave this young man an opportunity to succeed. This client has had a troubling and difficult family dynamic for some time, which caused him to leave our program prematurely. This young man left our program sober and claims to have stayed sober for 1 month after leaving the program. The client is currently in his active addiction and knows that we will help him anyway we can in the future.
Client 2 – This client did not have the funds to cover his deductible and out of pocket costs for his insurance to cover our program. The client was very passionate about his recovery, our continuum of care, and attending college. This client discharged our program when he had 4 months sober to work towards a degree in engineering on another college campus. This young man now has 6 months sober and is in school with a part time job.
Client 3 – This client has thrived with the opportunity given to him by the Ben Lucas Foundation. The young man needed assistance meeting his deductible and out of pocket costs to receive treatment from Life of Purpose Middle Tennessee. This client is currently in our Intensive Outpatient program and has almost five months of sobriety. This client has completed a workshop on welding that lasted 3 months to help prepare him for welding school that begins in January of 2018. This young man has made great strides in his recovery and with the assistance of our case management is now set up for a successful future in welding.