November 2018 Newsletter

Bernie Block Wellness Center Grand Opening September 7, 2018 Wellspring Administrative Center 225 W. Breckinridge Street (502) 637-4361

Welcome to new Board member Rosmond Jones Dolen!

www.wellspringky.org

Homeless? Helped? Hopeful?

Meet Our Match ~ Turn 10 into 20!

Welcome Back to returning Board member Bill Friel!

HOLIDAY HELP We need elves! We need individuals & organizations to adopt clients for our holiday giving tree program!

Contact Kristen at 502-753-1457 to help!

In Memoriam Wellspring is deeply saddened by the loss of two friends and ardent supporters, Jackie Swigart and Frankie Mathews. They will be deeply missed.

Officers and Directors

Alan MacDonald, Chair Carrie Schanie, Vice Chair Steve Kerrick, Treasurer Curtiss Scott, Secretary Rolandas “Ro” Byrd Paul Coomes Dawn Croft Rosmond Jones Dolen Rif El-Mallakh, M.D. Rich Freeman Bill Friel Gregory E. Mayes, Jr. Cissy Mills Margaret Pennington George W. Rapp, Jr. John “Jack” Trawick Jefferey M. Yussman Chief Executive Officer Katharine R. Dobbins

Jackie was a Board Member and friend. “Our good fortune in landing Jackie as a board member was born out of her personal experience with her daughter, Sallie, who became ill in her twenties,” said Wellspring CEO Kathy Dobbins. “The Swigarts offer a vivid example that mental illness can affect even the best and brightest among us and remind us that these illnesses are no-fault biological brain disorders just like any other illness. And when any one member of a family is diagnosed with a mental illness, the entire family is impacted.”

During Jackie’s first term as board chair Wellspring opened a Crisis Stabilization Unit which was the first of its kind in Kentucky. Additionally, Wellspring opened three permanent affordable housing programs during her tenure as board chair. All three continue to provide safe and affordable housing for adults living with mental illness.

Frankie was a long-time friend and supporter of Wellspring. Franke’s husband, Mack, was a founder. We were most fortunate that by having Mack, we also got Frankie. After mental illness struck their family, they were founding members of NAMI-Louisville (first called the Schizophrenia Association of Louisville) and, recognizing the need for supportive housing on a very personal level, they helped found Wellspring in 1982. Frankie was active with the Derby Preview Party Committee for many years and in Wellspring’s previous capital campaign. She was devoted to her family and spent nearly every Sunday for the past 30 years visiting with her son as he struggled to find his own equilibrium in recovery.

Mrs. Frances P. “Frankie” Mathews, July 20, 1926 - August 8, 2018 Dr. Jacqueline A. “Jackie” Swigart, January 26, 1931 - August 10, 2018 -4 -

Our Mission: Wellspring promotes mental health recovery and supports individuals in building

healthy and hopeful lives through behavioral health, housing and employment services.

It has been an exciting Autumn with billion-dollar lottery mania.

Now, we have a wonderful way for you to double a $2 lottery investment into a $4 donation to Wellspring. William O. Alden has offered to match donations – up to $10,000 total! So, we need you to help raise individual gifts and pledges that will help us promote mental health recovery for hundreds of people here in Louisville. Our goal is to raise $10,000 before December 31st. Every gift of any amount helps!

Won’t you please consider helping us Meet Our Match?

Save the Date!

The Derby Preview Party is scheduled for April 23, 2019!

November 2018

A Letter from CEO, Katharine Dobbins When you see a homeless person on the street, what’s your first thought? I’m not talking about panhandlers as they may or may not be homeless and most homeless folks are not panhandlers. I am talking about the people who look a little beaten down and may be in the park, under a viaduct, or in an encampment. Or, you may see someone who is dealing with active symptoms of a mental illness and you may think they are homeless even when they are not.

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Ivan: Sharing a Success Story

Ivan Garr Peer Support Specialist

Ivan talks a lot about labels.

The labels that used to be used to describe him: depressed, disabled, homeless, failure – and the labels he gives himself now – coworker, mentor, grandfather, friend, blessed. In October, labels were the jumping off point for his keynote speech at the Kentucky Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE) conference in Lexington, KY. He asked the crowd, “What labels are you wearing today?”

“Labels can affect our lives”, he said.

“Labels can inspire people to do great things, but we also have negative labels...that can lead to low selfesteem, low self-confidence”.

“People need to know that there’s other people out there just like them,” Ivan says. APSE is a national nonprofit membership organization dedicated to Employment First, a vision that all people with disabilities have a right to competitive employment in an inclusive workforce.

Ivan’s road to recovery echoes many others at Wellspring – mental illness, substance abuse, homelessness, even incarceration. He slowly found his path forward. He began volunteering to mentor other men who had experience in the justice system through New Legacy Re-entry Council.

When he became a client of Wellspring Works, he didn’t know what he wanted to do, but his

employment specialist took the time to get to know him well. Together, they found that Ivan could combine his passion for helping others with his personal experiences and he trained to become a Peer Support Specialist.

This November marks one year that he has been in this role for Wellspring!

He says that he has a “team within a team” and refers to himself as a consumer and co-worker. His team, who once supported him as a consumer are now his co-workers. He refers to Wellspring as his family. Ivan, we are glad you are part of the Wellspring family!

Wellspring Staff

crisis stabilization services | supportive housing | case management services | outpatient services | supported employment

Homeless? Helped? Hopeful? continued Either way, I bet your first thought is not “I wonder if I know them? I wonder if I went to high school with them? I wonder if I know their family?”.

Most likely, “those people” seem pretty anonymous to you. They are “the homeless”. Then again, you will never see many people who are homeless as you often cannot tell by looking who is and who isn’t. Recently, I got a voice message from one of our insurance agents who called expressing appreciation that Wellspring had helped a relative of a co-worker. Another staff person heard from a doctor she knows that we had helped a family member in crisis. Another vendor with whom we do business told us that we had probably saved his sister’s life. At a large gathering at an East End Country Club where I was presenting about Wellspring to a group, a woman stood up and publicly thanked us for helping her granddaughter.

I had no idea about these connections until afterthe-fact. It got me thinking about how every one of our clients has a backstory. Every one of them has a family. Every one of them had dreams and aspirations that were sidelined because they are unlucky enough to have biological brain disorders. One in 17 people has a serious mental illness and 25% of homeless persons have a mental illness. Unfortunately, mental illness is a major contributor to homelessness and unemployment.

SOLUTIONS? - Wellspring offers crisis stabilization, supportive/affordable housing, case management, therapy, and supported employment. Last month, the Housing Authority of Louisville received a HUD federal grant and Wellspring is a proud partner that will assess and link qualified applicants to housing.

The program targets non-elderly people with disabilities who are transitioning out of institutions or at serious risk of institutionalization or are homeless or are at risk of becoming homeless. Many of our housing programs require homelessness. This new program can provide assistance to people at-risk before they are actually on the streets or in shelters. Wellspring will provide case management and peer support, as needed, and help bring health, hope and recovery to people with serious mental illnesses. Call for more information as these vouchers will go fast!

It takes a community to make that happen. If you have read this, I just want to say thanks for being part of our community and for helping Wellspring help hundreds of people every day.

Volunteers Help Spread the Love for Wellspring Clients

What an Opportunity!

by Jeff Yussman, Wellspring Development Chair

Youth With a Mission volunteers at Wellspring this summer.

Wouldn’t it be great if this holiday you could give a charitable organization a significant gift and it was a win-win for you both? Thanks to the IRS, you or a loved one may be able to make that kind of gift! It’s called an IRA Charitable Rollover.

If you are 70.5 or older and have an IRA or other qualified retirement plan you can: 1. Donate up to $100,000 of your IRA account to a public charity, such as Wellspring. You can do this once or every year and you don’t have to count the IRA distribution as income; 2. Count the charitable payment as part (or all) of your annual required minimum distribution; and 3. If you are married, your spouse can make an IRA Charitable Rollover gift, too!

If you are fortunate to have non-IRA resources on which to live, using the IRA Charitable Rollover is a great way to eliminate income tax that either you (or ultimately your heirs) will pay on this part of your IRA. This gift also satisfies your required minimum distribution that you may not have wanted to take anyway. Given the substantial run-up in the markets in recent years (despite a rather “odd” market in 2018), many people have retirement assets to give to public charities of their choice without jeopardizing their personal lifestyle.

If you want to learn more about the advantages of the IRA Charitable Rollover, please contact Kim Johnson (502.753.1453) at Wellspring, and, as always, consult your own tax and financial advisors because Wellspring cannot give you tax or legal advice.

The Greater Louisville Association of Realtors put a lot of elbow grease and heart into Wellspring residences in September, painting and doing yard work.

We were very fortunate to have Adam Ma, an Eagle Scout candidate choose Wellspring for his project! He and his crew built 2 octagonal tables from scratch for the outdoor spaces for our crisis units!

As part of the Metro United Way Day of Action, volunteers from Humana’s Enterprise Risk and Compliance team helped revitalize Wellspring’s original home, Ardery House.

Bellarmine Knights in Action volunteers

Our first ever Harvest Happening client dance was held in September. It was coordinated by Wellspring’s Consumer Advisory Council. Special thanks to our major sponsor, Wellcare, as well as to Bridgehaven, for helping make is a resounding success! Clients danced the night away to tunes spun by DJ Tommy Jones and noshed on yummy treats!

All Access for Wellspring

Getting access to Wellspring programs is now easier thanks to a new fulltime Intake Clinician, Sara Brewer.

She has worked as a Wellspring therapist and has increased her duties. Sara now provides a “one-stop” central point of contact to community referral sources, which means she helps complete the intake process for clients seeking supportive housing, individual or group therapy, and/or case management.

This expanded role is a tremendous help to those needing services and for balancing Wellspring’s resources. Initial funding for this position came through an individual donor last year; however, Wellspring continues to seek funds to sustain this valuable asset.

Our clients enjoyed shopping and walked away with lots of new finds to help spiff up their homes at the Home Goods Sale! Many thanks to Two Chicks and Co. their generosity! ssdfdfff

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To make a gift visit our website at www.wellspringky.org - OR - write a check and mail it to Wellspring, PO Box 1927, Louisville, KY 40201 - OR - call 502-753-1457 and let us help you make a donation via credit card.

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