7/12/2006 12:10:00 PM Community service helps in addiction recovery
Working with a homeowner’s pets is one service Gray Wolf Ranch residents provide as part of their community outreach program. – Submitted photo
By Jordan Hartt
Special to The Leader
Nestled into conifers off Hastings Avenue, Gray Wolf Ranch is a quiet campus of cedar buildings threaded together by labyrinthine gravel trails. The woods have been thinned just enough to allow sun to penetrate, and it fills the campus with a green, woody light. Here, young men between the ages of 14 and 25 learn how to live a life free of substance abuse.
Gray Wolf emphasizes the importance of working on recovery in community with others. Through the ranch’s volunteer community service program, the young men at Gray Wolf provide a variety of services to Port Townsend residents including landscaping, lawn mowing, trash removal, moving furniture and painting. Residents volunteer for many individuals and small businesses as well as community organizations such as gatheringplace, the Wooden Boat Foundation, Skookum, Habitat for Humanity, the Port Townsend Aero Museum, the Northwest Maritime Center, the North Olympic Salmon Coalition, and Centrum. Gray Wolf has about 100 admissions a year.
“The ranch has a 12-step philosophy of recovery, and one of the steps is to focus on others as a way to work on sobriety,” said Gray Wolf Program Director Woody Bernas. “The nature of addiction is to be self-centered, and the antidote is to reach out and focus on other people’s needs. Volunteering in the community is one way to make a contribution.”
Gray Wolf residents are serving more and more people through the community service volunteer program. One resident estimates that he has worked for about 25 people since arriving in Port Townsend, mostly widows or senior citizens. He weeds, mows lawns, and helps people move. “It’s definitely a satisfying feeling knowing that you’re contributing to the community,” he said.
The community service volunteer program has been part of Gray Wolf Ranch since it opened in 1997. Gray Wolf Director Peter Boeschenstein said the program began “as a way for the guys to give something back, and out of a desire to build a strong, positive relationship between the ranch and the Port Townsend community.”
The residents, who stay at the ranch between four and six months, are required to spend their first week acclimating. Then they jump right into community work, Boeschenstein said. The residents are also given the opportunity to pursue paying positions, as many individuals and organizations are able and more than willing to compensate the young men for their good work. “However, the first obligation is to recovery,” Schwartz said. All the money a resident earns gets turned over to the ranch, where it is kept in a “wage account” until the resident graduates.
Grant Street Elementary School Principal Steve Finch praises the success of Gray Wolf’s community service volunteer program. “The boys,” Finch said, “bridge a really critical gap for some of our kids. We’ve had such a long track record with these boys that I’m able to say, with confidence, that they really help us.”
Finch added that Gray Wolf volunteers are treated the same as any other volunteer would be treated. They are screened and placed in the school only when a perfect match is found. “I have nothing but praise for the kids, the program, and the partnership,” Finch noted.
Some of their duties include cleaning out a class’s guinea pig cage, passing out snacks, running errands around the school, and finding books in the library. Residents go on field trips, dust, make copies, do computer work, help with assessment, and correct math assignments. They listen to individual students read aloud, sound out words, help students with their handwriting, and talk to them about ideas for writing.
When some parents hear that recovering addicts are working with their children, at first the “hair goes up on their necks,” Finch said. But parents become enthusiastic about the program after he explains how helpful the residents are to the students, and how many changes they’ve made in the students’ lives. Finch noted that through the experience of teaching, many Gray Wolf residents have gone on to become teachers.
Boeschenstein said two of the program’s goals are to continue networking with the community and to partner more intimately with nonprofit organizations. “This program works for everyone involved. Our guys develop enormous gratitude for all the people who have helped them in their recovery by giving them the chance to be contributing members of the community.”
One resident worked at the Wooden Boat Foundation under the supervision of Rob Sanderson and Ken McBride. He cleaned out the boat shop, learned to sand, varnish and pump out the boats. “He was a huge help,” said Sanderson. “We loved having him here.”
As the young resident talked about his time at the foundation, he saw Kathy Schwartz walking past, heading home at the end of the day. “Rob and Ken want to thank me for my help. They are thinking of taking me out sailing on my last day,” he said. “Is it OK if I go?”
“Yes,” Schwartz says, smiling. “You’re graduating. You can do anything you want.”
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