The doors aren’t open, but the will is there.
Planners of the Everett Recovery Cafe are determined to open a place in the city’s core that will support people as they seek lives free of drugs, alcohol and other problems that lead to homelessness. The vision is a place that’s a haven, a social atmosphere separate from formal treatment.
David Coffey, executive director of Recovery Cafe in Seattle, explained the mission in a video created by the founders of the Everett Recovery Cafe, a new nonprofit organization.
“It’s a recovery support center in a cafe setting,” Coffey said on the video shown during a recent meeting of the Everett Community Streets Initiative task force. That initiative, which is holding community meetings at Everett Station, is exploring street-level social issues. The task force is expected to start developing recommendations next month.
Wendy Grove, director of the Everett Recovery Cafe, has attended those meetings. She is working to raise awareness of the program she hopes will be up and running later this fall.
The priority is finding a suitable location. Everett Recovery Cafe board members had been hoping to use the lower level of a local church, but issues of accessibility arose. “We’ve found another place we’re looking at now. We really want to open as soon as we can,” Grove said Friday. That could be November.
Everett’s zoning code bars social services from being located on the ground floor along parts of some streets downtown, according to Meghan Pembroke, a city spokeswoman.
“It’s a day support center for adults,” Grove said. “We’re looking to fill a gap. Even if people go to treatment, when they’re released there’s no place to go. Our goal is to allow them a healing space, a place where they can change their lives.”
Seattle’s Recovery Cafe, at 2022 Boren Ave., opened in 2004. It serves about 150 people per day. It’s open five days a week, Tuesdays through Saturdays, and serves lunch and dinner. There are support groups, classes, and times for people to socialize. “The expectation is that everyone will give back,” Coffey said Friday.
The Recovery Cafe is a non-institutional setting and people are welcomed in a loving way, but “the model is based on the best science,” Coffey said. People are helped by peers, as well as by Recovery Cafe staff and volunteers.
Grove, 53, was a teacher for 10 years. She taught third and fourth grade at Machias Elementary School in the Snohomish district. In 2009, after leaving her teaching job, she began volunteering at the Recovery Cafe in Seattle. She later worked there on the staff.
“I fell in love with the mission. I decided we needed one up here in Everett,” said Grove, who lives on Whidbey Island. The Everett Recovery Cafe is affiliated with the Seattle cafe, but is financially independent, she said.
She sees the Everett Recovery Cafe, which has received a $6,000 grant from the Tulalip Tribes, as more than a drop-in center.
People will have memberships. There will be no cost, but members will be expected to be drug- and alcohol-free for 24 hours prior to coming, attend and participate in weekly support groups, and contribute. At the Seattle cafe, Grove said, “they cook, they clean bathrooms and mop floors.”
Community volunteers teach classes — art and yoga to financial literacy. Grove led a writing class at the Seattle cafe.
Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary was among those who appeared in the Everett Recovery Cafe video. He said many with drug and alcohol problems cycle through the county jail and local hospitals. “They’re not getting the help they need,” he said in the video.
Ken Stark, the county’s human services director, was also in the video. He said that although many people with addictions and mental illness do get formal treatment, “once treatment is done they don’t know what to do, and they don’t know where to go.”
Tim Adrian, a member of the Everett Recovery Cafe board, said in the video that the cafe isn’t a program, but an ongoing resource. “It’s really a safe haven from the streets,” he said.
Does it work?
At the Recovery Cafe in Seattle, Coffey sees people every day whose lives have been transformed.
“It’s the best part of this job, the most inspiring,” he said. “It’s incredible to see people come back to life.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Breakfast event
A “Friend and Fundraising Breakfast, An Education of the Heart,” to support and learn about the Everett Recovery Cafe, is scheduled from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Oct. 16 at the Everett United Church of Christ, 2624 Rockefeller Ave. Breakfast is free; donations are welcome. To attend, RSVP by email to: breakfast@everettrecoverycafe.org
Learn more at: www.everettrecoverycafe.org/
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