New community outreach and recovery center opens its doors

A newly repainted building, new sign and twin handicapped ramps greet residents to the new Community Connections Outreach and Recovery Center.

by Dan McClelland

Tupper Lake now has a new place where people and families who suffer the difficulties of substance abuse can find help in the company of both their peers and professional counselors.

It's at a freshly remodeled outreach and recovery center at 64 Demars Blvd. and Thursday was the open house and its first day in business.

The building was in the 1960s the headquarters for the LaValley and Woulf oil business and over the years its been many things like a bar, a real estate office, a fish market and several small shops, before this recent transformation. It's now a place for people to find comfort where there's people who care.

The place was created in recent months by officials with Franklin County's Community Connections agency, which operates under the umbrella of the Franklin County Community Services, directed by Suzanne LaVigne. Suzanne, who was very supportive of the new facility in Tupper Lake. Suzanne is the wife of Tupper Lake native Larry LaVigne.

This year, responding to the growing problem of opioid drug use in small communities like ours, Community Connections intimated a series of public meetings here. What resulted was a new Tupper Lake group called “Tupper Lake Community Cares.”

In attendance in the opening minutes of the open house Thursday at 11a.m. was one of its members, Superintendent of School Seth McGowan. The committee is comprised of a cross-section of community leaders and private citizens here.

The new group has been meeting monthly since last December at the civic center's new meeting room and at other sites.

One of the recommendations of that group and several dozen local people who attended those meetings, was for the creation of an outreach center here to help folks in trouble with drugs and alcohol. That's the new place in town which opened Thursday.

The place is both warm and inviting, after local carpenter Randy Lohr rebuilt the place from its studs in past months. There's a large combination living room-kitchen area on one side of the building, serviced by its own door and handicapped ramp. It has living room-style furniture including an oversized couch for lounging. There's also a dining room table for conversations over coffee or for visitors to do puzzles or play board games.

At the other end of the building is a private meeting room for counseling and group discussions, which is also served by a separate entrance and handicapped ramp. There are two modern offices for the use by counselors off that room.

The bright surroundings and tasteful décor give the place a very homey feel.

Lee Rivers, executive director of Community Connections, explained that his organization partnered with St. Joe's Addiction Treatment and Recovery Center which now has offices on Main Street here to engage “credentialled peer recovery advocates” to deliver various services from Tupper Lake new center.

The new facility is open 9a.m. to 5p.m. seven days a week.

Appointments in the private piece of the building will occur each day on a scheduled basis. In the larger living room-style section, people can just come and go as they wish and where they'll find others to talk with or just to hang out around supportive people. People were expected to start stopping by as of that day, according to Mr. Rivers.

Future meetings of Tupper Lake Community Cares will be held in the new place on Demars Blvd. where there's parking on three sides.

Mr. Rivers said the landlord Jim LaValley has been excellent to work with in making the building ready for its new mission.

Joe Guck, a new staff member at the new recovery center, and Krista Piasecki of Tupper Lake, its manager, were enjoying Thursday's open house, greeting many of the two dozen or more guests. (Dan McClelland photos)

The work was done with a grant Community Connections secured through one of its funding agencies and that money will also carry the operation through next September, when more grants are expected, according to Mr. Rivers.

“We have a sustainability plan that will take us far beyond next September,” he explained.

How many people will take advantage of the new place and its many services is a moving number, Mr. Rivers knows that from his years in the business and the operation of a similar facility in Malone. But based on the national statistic that one in four Americans may need help with substance abuse at some point in their lifetime, the new center could eventually have as many as 1,000 people from this area who could benefit from its services, he predicted.

The new program manager at the facility is Darrin Dumas and he was there Thursday to welcome the visitors.

The new place in town may also eventually be the headquarters for a number of new services Community Connections hopes to bring to town like home-care management, home and community-based waiver services and the creation of an apartment for a homeless person or homeless family.

Some of those things could materialize as early as next year, he told the Free Press.

Residents here are invited to stop by this new place in town to find out all that it offers.