A thank-you from Alison

Dear Cottage Farm supporters,

It is with immense gratitude that I share good news about our vision to make Cottage Farm a reality. Since our “coming out” concert in May 2009, we have been blessed with the generosity and passion of many remarkable individuals and organizations who see that therapeutic communities are a vital step in providing continuum of care for some of the most vulnerable and wonderful people in our society.

WE HAVE PROPERTY !!
The first person who must be mentioned is Wolfgang Duntz, a family man, a lover of community, and a developer who believes that his gifts with business are to be used for the betterment of society. In October 2009, Wolfgang purchased for Cottage Farm Society 58 acres of beautiful arable land on the Sunshine coast. He also committed to fronting enough of the costs of facilities that we can approach major funding and housing organizations to partner with Cottage Farm. Thank you Wolfgang!

WORKING IN COMMITTEES
Without a doubt, we would not be where we are now without the visionary support of Vancouver Coastal Health region and Heather Hay – Director of the Regional Complex Concurrent Disorder Program, Vancouver Coastal Health, who has lent us the enormous skill of Susann Richter, our project manager. With her time and expertise, along with our committed board of directors, and Wolfgang, we have now developed: a Program Development committee, a Spiritual Advisory committee, a Marketing and Communications committee, a Legal and Managerial team, a Facilities and Land Use committee. And a knowledgeable and experienced Fundraising Committee is currently being developed. These committees all consist of people who are both experts in their own field, and share a passion for creating a loving, home-like, mini-village where people who have such enormous potential are given the tools they need to embark upon their unique journey of Recovery.

SOME OF OUR TASKS
There are many tasks for us, from developing the structure of the organization to designing our facilities; from planning the program for clients and staff, to building preliminary relationships with those groups, individuals, and organizations who are involved or will be involved with Cottage Farm. It is an exciting and awe-inspiring task, and in the words of Barrie Forbes, our amazing Chairman,“it is rather like being strapped onto a rocket, and hanging on for dear life!”

VISITING THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S.
I leave you with some of the inspirational pictures which Susann, Barrie and I took, when on a trip to visit four therapeutic communities in the States. Cooper-Riis, in Northern Carolina, Hundred Acres Ranch in Vermont, Windhorse, and the grandfather of American Residential Therapeutic Communities in North America, Gould Farm. A huge thank you to the clients, staff and directors of every one of these inspiring communities who made time to freely share with us their expertise, communities, and passion for healing.

THANK YOU ALL!!!!
And finally, to the many of you who have contributed to Cottage farm, receipts will be arriving in time for tax time, and thank you so much for your continuing support and passion for making Canada a better place to treat those who are challenged with serious mental illness. We plan to share more news and developments in the near future, so please stay in touch with us at http://cottagefarm.ca.

In Gratitude,
Alison Nixon

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 12:56 am and is filed under What's New. The entry is tagged under You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.