Yes, it does take a village
by Olga Peters, Vermont Business Magazine
Once the center of local drug trafficking, a rehabilitated building now serves as a residence for Jenna’s Promise, a nonprofit that supports women in recovery.
“Someone said to us, you know, I used to come to Johnson for drugs, and now I come to Johnson for recovery,” Interim Co-Executive Director Daniel Franklin said.
“We’re not cloistered up on some hill,” said fellow Interim Co-Executive Director Gregory Tatro. “Instead, we’re out there actively engaging with the community, and the community is engaging us back.”
In Tatro’s opinion, society addresses substance use disorder in a way that is similar to giving someone an aspirin for a headache that’s caused by a deeper chronic condition. Eventually, the aspirin stops helping because it’s not mitigating the headache’s true cause.
“And if we don't deal with those underlying causes and those underlying challenges that people experience, that really all we've done is take away a coping mechanism, and we haven't replaced it with anything,” Franklin added.
Jenna’s Promise uses a network of wrap-around services—stable housing, intensive outpatient programming, workforce training, and housing—to support women in recovery. The program recently added dental health, nutrition, and support for eating disorders to its roster.
The nonprofit’s seven properties, including recovery houses, two social enterprise businesses, and a community center, are located in Johnson. They are all within walking distance of each other.
“People joke about it being a recovery town,” said Franklin. “We call it the recovery village model because it takes a village to live a life of recovery.”
Substance use disorder is often referred to as a disease of despair.
In Franklin’s opinion, community and connection are key to people’s successful recovery and a healthy community.
Unfortunately, Vermont communities struggle with circumstances that feed despair, like a poor economy, isolation, or crime, Franklin said. People must turn towards one another when these things fray a community’s fabric. However, under stress, people often turn against each other.
“It's these cracks in our community where drug dealers find their foothold,” Franklin said.
A new model
Founders Greg and Dawn Tatro, the couple behind G.W. Tatro Construction in Jeffersonville, launched Jenna’s Promise after the 2019 loss of their daughter Jenna Rae, 26, of a fentanyl overdose.
In an August interview with CNN, Dawn Tatro said, “We did everything that we were supposed to do as a family. We did family vacations, we did the Sunday dinners. But it doesn’t matter who you are because that drug basically owns you.”
Jenna first received a prescription for OxyContin in 2012 after a trip to the emergency room.
Dawn Tatro has been recognized as a CNN Hero https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/02/us/dawn-tatro-jennas-promise-cnnheroes/i….
Tatro said the seed that grew into Jenna’s Promise came from his sister’s experience.
“Jenna struggled to find housing, she struggled to get treatment, and she struggled with finding many different supports,” Tatro said. “But three of the big areas that we really saw was Jenna’s lack of connection with the community, with other people, and getting a job, and with finding stable housing.”
Jenna’s Promise uses a four-pillar, three-phased approach. The pillars include clinical programming, residential supports, behavioral programming, health and wellness, and workforce development.
Residents must meet different requirements and expectations before transitioning to the next phase. Each phase also comes with various privileges and levels of independence for the residents. Tatro said clients move through the program at their own pace.
Jenna’s Promise employs approximately 23 staff members and serves 15 residents.
The organization receives funding through state and federal grants and individual donations.
Tatro said, “So the work of Jenna's promise is not only changing the reality of how we address substance use, it's not only trying to reinvigorate our rural community, but it's also helping to change the conversation across the state, and increasingly we're working on connections at the national level too because that's the way that we solve this crisis.”
Work as a part of a sustainable life and community
Franklin said that the business community has a stake in people’s recovery.
In his opinion, approximately 23 million people are in recovery across the country. Tens of thousands are in Vermont, and many more are yet to start their recovery journey.
“It is one of the most substantial populations of people who could return to the workforce and help address our workforce challenges,” Franklin said. “If we invest in them and their health and wellbeing, we help them overcome barriers.”
At Jenna’s Promise, the program’s workforce pillar includes training in resume building, communication, and other skills, depending on the clients' needs. Clients also focus on fostering soft skills such as reliability, accountability, follow-through, initiative, and appropriate workplace communication.
“These are really capable, powerful women who are coming to us at a point of powerlessness because of substance use disorder,” said Madison Perry, workforce development education program manager. “And so we really work on building the kind of workforce stepping stones and building them back up to where they need to be to have a successful career and be in the space to maintain employment.”
Residents begin their workforce training at one of Jenna’s Promise’s social enterprise businesses, such as JP’s Promising Goods, a surplus goods and appliance store, or Jenna’s Promise Roasting Company coffee roasters. Currently, the organization holds the state contract to provide coffee at the state’s rest areas. Clients also practice personal finance, budgeting, saving, basic banking, and understanding and building credit.
The organization partners with the Vermont Department of Labor (VDOL) for training. The VDOL also provides payroll subsidies during the program’s first phase.
“We also do weekly meetings and check-ins for each resident. We'll discuss where they're at with feeling ready to work and what we can do to get them there,” Perry said.
Of the job placements, Perry said, “It's a real job. It's a real store. You're getting engagement with community members. They're being exposed to a real work scenario. However, they have the support of myself, they have the support of the store manager, and the rest of the staff so it's a safe place for them to fail or make mistakes and then learn from those mistakes.”
Many people or employers nod and say yes to recovery until it means having a recovery house next door or hiring a person in recovery.
Franklin recalled one of Jenna’s experiences after a job interview at a local car dealership, which he felt illustrated the challenges people in recovery face.
“Jenna had an electric personality, was very charismatic, and was a good salesperson. She loved cars,” he said.
According to Franklin, Jenna felt the interview went well and felt excited. On her way out, however, she overheard a manager say they’d never hire her because she was just a junky.
“It crushed her spirit,” he said.
Tatro said building community goes both ways.
For example, the organization has rehabilitated an abandoned cafe and made it a working business. It also holds community events, like winter sledding parties, open to everyone.
“The people that come might be in recovery, they might not be, it doesn’t matter,” Tatro said. “To quote a well-known politician, ‘it’s hard to hate up close,’ when you’re buying a latte from someone, and they are maybe in recovery, maybe not. Because, again, we bring everybody into that small business.”
Tatro was quoting former Arizona Congresswoman Martha McSally, who told journalist Maggie Mallon in a 2017 interview with Glamour Magazine, “It’s hard to hate up close. The more you get to know each other, the more common ground you can find and the more you can disagree without being disagreeable.”
Being the spark of change
As Jenna’s Promise reaches the five-year mark as an organization, the team has turned its focus inwards. Its goal is to ensure the organization’s internal systems operate smoothly and become a model that other communities can replicate.
The organization's most significant shift is taking it from what Tatro described as its startup phase to a fully professionalized organization with the potential to expand beyond Vermont.
“We’re trying to strengthen the organization for the future, and it's important to have new vision and leadership at the staff level as well as at the board leadership level,” Tatro said.
A few months ago, Tatro stepped off the board to take on the role of interim co-executive director with Franklin as the organization seeks a permanent director.
Co-founders Greg and Dawn Tatro have made an impressive move by stepping down from leading the board and into official founder roles. Greg Tatro has also stepped down as chair of the board, and Dawn Tatro has left the board to take a paid position within the organization.
Current board members Kitty Toll and Roger Marcoux have stepped up to serve as chair and vice-chair to help craft a larger vision and goals for Jenna’s Promise.
Tatro describes the staffing and board shifts as the organization’s next natural evolution, which, in time, can spark a larger grassroots change and better future for communities across the country.
“It’s a change for the whole organization as we move from it being just about family,” Tatro said. “This is what's necessary for success. If it stays just this thing about a family, I think the organization fails.”
Keeping hope
Franklin said Johnson has suffered in the past with a poor economy and crime that led to multiple abandoned buildings and drug trafficking.
He understands the people’s concerns around public safety and a perceived increase in crime in Vermont. He recalls when Jenna’s Promise bought the house, which eventually became one of its recovery homes.
Some of the neighbors objected to having a recovery home next door. According to Franklin, Founder Greg Tatro spoke with the community members and asked if they would rather have people in recovery living next door or people selling drugs.
“Mind shifts are critical,” Franklin said. “I’ve always believed if we’re going to have one or the other, why don’t we invest in supporting people to live their best lives and make our community better?”
For Franklin, supporting the community and people in recovery comes down to investment. Will we help ourselves as a community by investing in people? Or will we invest in systems that don’t work or think we’re making no investment by ignoring the problem?
“The overwhelming takeaway that I have is that nobody is beyond redemption and beyond saving,” Franklin said. “That if you're alive, you can go on to heal and to recover and to do great things.”
Tatro said, “We sometimes get stuck in this groupthink as a society with many problems, and we think they can’t be flexible,” he said. “But when things aren’t working, it is time to build a new path forward.”
Sometimes, in the world of recovery, people take two steps back to take one step forward, but it's all a learning experience, he said.
“You gotta have hope; you have to have hope that things will get better, or the community will just continue to decline, businesses will close,” Franklin said. “They have to believe that things can change and that we can come together to solve these problems and try to fight back.”
Employers interested in partnering with the Jenna’s Promise workforce development team, learn more at https://jennaspromise.org/workforce-development/
Olga Peters is a freelance writer from Windham County.
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