Sara Hollar shares her story at the panel discussion on recovery Tuesday at Rhodes State College.
Jacob Espinosa
LIMA —Rhodes State College celebrated the opening of a new space for learning about mental health and addictions with a ribbon cutting and a special seminar Tuesday.
Officials dedicated the Justin Borra Center for Behavioral Services and then moved to the Keese Hall Multipurpose Center for a panel discussion with several speakers sharing their stories of recovery.
“This event happened because we had a grant and we knew that we wanted to bring someone to speak to our students and community about addiction and recovery,” Dr. Patricia Hampshire, Chair of Public Service for Rhodes, said. “We have this beautiful space that is built for our students to learn in our Addictions, Mental Health and Social Work Assistant Program and we get to address aspects of addiction as well as mental health. So we’re bringing that awareness to folks and sharing and educating them on the possibilities of recovery.”
Rhodes student Jasmine Cox said that the experience was great to have, especially as someone in recovery herself.
“It was nice to hear donors who are helping to advance the program and the speakers were amazing too,” she said. “They were genuine and it just shows how people in recovery pretty much can do anything.”
Hampshire said that she hoped people learned some valuable things from the seminar, which featured four speakers in recovery sharing their experiences.
“I’m hoping people got to really understand that when it comes to addiction, there’s more than just the addiction itself, there are stories behind every person who is struggling,” she said. “And it takes compassion and extra knowledge to help and understand what people are going through. Being compassionate and being human is the solution to helping those who are seeking recovery.”
Cox said that she hoped people would be more empathetic when considering the plight of those battling addiction.
“I hope they learned about the stigma of mental health and addiction and that they just try to be more open-minded when it comes to things like that,” she said.
Panelists included Daniel Ritchie, Bonita Fraley, Kyle Overmeyer and Sara Hollar. Author Tony Hoffman gave a keynote address prior to the ribbon cutting.
For more information on Rhodes State College, visit its website.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
