LIFELINE CELEBRATES SUCCESSFUL $15 MILLION COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGN
New women’s campus, expanded staff and $3 million endowment funded
At Thursday’s annual banquet with 450 people on hand to celebrate the news, Lifeline Recovery Center announced that more than $15 million has been raised in a comprehensive campaign.
Board chair Steve Powless said the $14.5 million goal had felt “unimaginable, unattainable even.”
Filled with emotion as the larger total was revealed, Powless thanked supporters:
“This community chose to invest in people searching for a second chance, and each person who contributed is now part of the second chance afforded to each Lifeline client. Only God could have written this story.”
More than 450 households, 120 businesses and 50 churches contributed.
Executive director Ashley Miller, herself a 2014 graduate of the recovery program, said the celebration was not just about buildings and fundraising. “Tonight is about lives being changed,” she said, “families being restored and hope being renewed.”
This year, Lifeline celebrated its largest ever graduating class in 22 years with 60 men and women completing the residential recovery program. “Every single one of them is a miracle,” she said, noting that 100 percent had left the program with a job.
Former executive director Terrye Peeler, Miller’s mentor and predecessor, has been involved with Lifeline more than 20 years, including time as a board member and on the campaign committee. “In the early years, we were a lean operation and could never have dreamed what Lifeline would become,” she said, “but people keep answering the call.”
Lifeline has grown from original campuses on Morgan Lane for men and Bloom Avenue for women to a 45-acre campus in Ballard County for men, purchased four years ago, and a 45-acre women’s campus scheduled for a fall opening near the airport.
The comprehensive campaign made both campuses possible without debt, as well as additional staff and a $3 million endowment for long-term sustainability.
“When I came on as executive director in 2020,” Miller said, “we were serving 65 people with a staff of 12. Today we serve 130 people with 55 dedicated staff. When our new campus opens this fall, that number will climb to 190 people served daily.”
In addition, Lifeline plans to develop the original Morgan Lane campus into long-term sober living and offer family counseling and other outpatient services. “The point is Lifeline will continue to innovate in the next quarter century the way we have in the last,” she said.
Powless said the growth was made possible by a caring community. “This community did not simply fund construction projects,” he said. “This community built hope. This campaign was never really about dollars. It has always been about lives.”
Tonight’s event, themed “Celebrate Great Things,” raised more than $100,000 to provide affordable treatment options. Donations can still be made at LifelineRecoveryCenter.org.
Lifeline provides an accredited long-term residential recovery program, including clinical care and workforce development, for people suffering from addiction.
