On the Road Event: New Directions’ Ride & Drive Transformation Tour
We are pleased to announce our annual fundraising event scheduled for July 31, 2021! This year, we continue our celebration of our 40th Anniversary—a singular legacy of saving and transforming lives—as we look to the next 40 years with On the Road: New Directions’ Ride & Drive Transformation Tour. We hope you will join us this year for this unique On the Road event.
Here is why…
For 40 years, New Directions has helped adolescents, young adults, and their families recover from substance use and mental health challenges. We provide trauma-informed, evidence-based, life-saving residential treatment, recovery housing, continuing care, post-treatment aftercare, and intensive out-patient services—no matter one’s ability to pay. This past year, substance use and mental health challenges reached all-time epidemic highs, again. Because of your past support, our resilient staff met the myriad challenges posed by this epidemic—saving and restoring lives, helping our young people and families on their road to recovery—all within the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, this past summer, your support helped New Directions provide summer schooling to 28 students (10 girls and 18 boys). Highlights included:
- 23 of the students engaged in credit recovery, either electives or core curriculum
- 21.5 core and elective credits achieved
- 3 students conducted GED preparation
- 1 student completed high school credit and graduated
- 1 student completed their senior project and defense
- 4 students completed summer readings, with one of the students reading several novels and developed a great interest in the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- 1 student completed online courses with exit plan including nursing courses for STNA certification
And, did you know that each dollar of your support saves our larger community $12.00 in reduced emergency room visits, hospitalizations, school drop-outs, and legal charges? Together, we move our young people, families, and our larger community further along the road in recovery.
Here is how…
When we talk about being “on the road” in recovery, we are really talking about embracing the process of transformation and change. This can apply in meaningful ways to anyone’s life. We recognize that we all need to “recover,” to heal, from the many challenges that COVID-19 has presented. The rainbow here is that this has driven us—reaffirmed our commitment to trauma-informed care—as we continue our care of clients and families, and embrace the responsibility to care for each other and our shared citizenry. We accomplished this with our On-Screen: Night Fore Movies fundraiser last summer. Indeed, we found meaningful ways to safely connect, to share, and participate in one another’s lives while raising the necessary funds to save and transform lives.
Advancing on this success and innovation, On the Road: New Directions’ Ride & Drive Transformation Tour is an event like no other—part scenic car tour & motorcycle ride, and part photographic odyssey and contest. A scenic car tour & motorcycle ride is organized along a route in Northeast Ohio. Don’t worry if you don’t ride! The ride will be live-streamed for our out-of-town or home-bound friends, and, remember, all are welcome to drive cars and join in the fun of stopping at special designated sites along the tour route. You will enjoy some fresh air as we tour through the Amish countryside, covered bridges, parks, and ending at Glenwillow, the founding site of New Directions. Each stop will feature one-of-a-kind painted scenes or photo-backdrops organized around themes of transformation for participants to pose in front of, interact with, to make their own photographs.
With safe, socially-distanced protocols in place, participants can make individual or family photos at each stop to share, and collect stamps on a special participant passport for a chance to win grand prizes such as a big screen TV, iPad, shopping spree, and more!
Building on the success of last summer’s fundraiser, there will be an array of exciting, all ages, online programs reaching hundreds-of-thousands of people leading up to the big event. Sponsorship benefits include backdrop sponsorships, participant passports, raffle tickets, access to online programs, and presence in an array of printed, email, website, and social media outreach materials with a reach and engagement of 300,000! Stay tuned for more program details in the coming months. On the Road is sure to create life-long memories for all with proceeds directly benefitting New Directions’ Summer Education Program. Please join us to celebrate New Directions’ next 40 years—safely—and enjoy the outdoors, special tour sites, and create images of a lifetime!