We are entering the holiday season. In these uncertain times, it is hard to imagine how to approach the season without acknowledging the issues that impact our nation, our community and our loved ones.
As a community, we can always find comfort through compassion, caring and grace. We should enter this season with hope and faith that through adversity, pandemic or hard times, we can find our way together.
We can see the small flame of hope in the darkest night. Perhaps like the North Star in the night sky, there is a guiding light that helps us when we feel lost.
As the director of a program that helps women recover from substance abuse, I know that we are a guiding light. For many women, our program at Women’s Recovery Services provides hope that they can find an open door and an opportunity for recovery. With child in tow, and a babe in arms, a mother can find reprieve from addiction. We know it was not her dream to become addicted, but nonetheless, here she is. It is easy without understanding addiction to say she chose this “lifestyle.” Yet, when we search our hearts, we find compassion and understanding for her desire to find a different life in recovery for her and her children.
If you are reading this, you can also be a shining star—a little light in the night sky that brings reprieve to a desperate mother in need of help.
Every person who contributes to our program has deeply personal reasons for giving. For some, it is because a family member — mother, daughter, aunt, or sister — received help, Others are paying kindness forward in memory of a loved one taken by addiction. For others, they know about the rising numbers of women and children in our community who need help, so they take action to make a difference. Each desire in our community to help is a blessing for our program, and for the countless women who seek treatment with us.
Here is how your own contribution matters. As a result of just a handful of donations to our program this year, a mother and her young daughter are living a different life. The mother returned to school and works part-time, and her daughter has a stable home with a loving and present parent. The generosity of just three donors made a huge impact on this family, not just during her stay at our program, but for every day forward.
No donation to the charities and assistance programs in our community is too small—it all adds up, and it all makes a difference to each person who is faced with the daunting prospect of facing challenges alone.
This column is to express our gratitude as a single service for a single group in need. But, it is also a reminder that every person in every community can provide one more person in need—in our case, one more woman and one more child—an opportunity for a different future.
As a service to help others, we are always grateful for the gifts from our community at any level of ability or comfort to give. We are so grateful for every partnership to help our neighbors, friends and loved ones start a new way of life.
In this season, we hope our donors and partners will continue to be a light in our community. And we hope that every person across our nation who can help will find ways to be a light in their own communities.
At the Women’s Recovery Services of Sonoma County, we wish every family a multitude of blessings, beginning with big hugs and generosity toward every neighbor who will benefit from your love.
Please join us in another year of service to our communities.
Diane Madrigal is the executive director of Women's Recovery Services.
Alerts Sign-up