Imagine if you could play a part in breaking the generational cycles of poverty, addiction, and incarceration. Picture the impact of providing a second chance and a fresh start to those trapped in these crippling cycles. This week, we're joined by Tina Mitchell, the unstoppable force behind Crossbridge, who shares her journey from starting the organization in 2006 with just one house and six beds.
Throughout the conversation, Tina's steadfast belief in the transformative power of hope shines through. Tune in to this heartening conversation as Tina shares her vision for Crossbridge and how it continues to create change, one life at a time.
Imagine if you could play a part in breaking the generational cycles of poverty, addiction, and incarceration. Picture the impact of providing a second chance and a fresh start to those trapped in these crippling cycles. This week, we're joined by Tina Mitchell, the unstoppable force behind Crossbridge, who shares her journey from starting the organization in 2006 with just one house and six beds.
Throughout the conversation, Tina's steadfast belief in the transformative power of hope shines through. Tune in to this heartening conversation as Tina shares her vision for Crossbridge and how it continues to create change, one life at a time.
Welcome back to Unpolished Recovery. My name is Trey. Most stories of recovery start with how a bad addiction was, how they enter recovery and how great life is now. That's a polished story.
Speaker 2:My name is Chris. I'm your co-host of Unpolished Recovery. Today we have a very special guest. We have Pastor Tina Mitchell, who is the executive director and founder of Crossbridge. Thanks for joining us, pastor Tina. Thanks for having me. So I've told people before you're my, my mentor and you're the one actually inspired me to work in recovery, because I've seen you just given To the community just tirelessly in a. So do you want to just start out by giving us some general information about Crossbridge?
Speaker 3:Sure Crossbridge is a nonprofit that's committed to providing programming that will end destructive cycles, particularly generational poverty, addiction and incarceration. And oftentimes addiction, incarceration ends up being a result of generational poverty, and these, all of these cycles really are generational cycles. What we have seen is that addiction, incarceration, when you begin to look at it, that it's been a generational cycle in families, so without intervention, these cycles won't be broken.
Speaker 2:So that's what we're trying to do and just I may, as she has started with this. But we talk about kid power, youth power, restoration house on some way. You explain just kind of how Crossbridge Overseas all these things right.
Speaker 3:So in trying to break those cycles, you know we want to work preventively with kids so that before they ever need the restorative part of Crossbridge Restoration house, perhaps we can break the cycles before these kids ever get involved in drugs or alcohol. So that's what our kid power, youth power program is about. It's a prevention program, it's mentoring, and mentoring is shown to Scientifically, it's proven that it can mitigate the damage of toxic stress and our children living in an environment that Creates toxic stress. So if we don't try to mitigate that damage oftentimes evidence is also there They'll turn to drugs and alcohol. So we're trying to break the cycle there. And then on the restorative side we're working with people who didn't have kid power, new power, and had those cycles begin in their life and you know, have many times just destroyed just about everything in their life and we're trying to help them kind of put that back together and restore, you know, a great life for them.
Speaker 2:Can't how long. How long ago did you start Everything in the motion?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I found it in 2006. We didn't start any program till 2009 and in those three years we were trying to raise a little bit of funding and really just decide what it is we wanted to do, and because we knew we wanted to have quality programming and You'd told me before, but when you first started the restoration side, it was just one house right. One house with six beds all men and then today, what do we have?
Speaker 2:how many beds we?
Speaker 3:have 74 beds, 53, I think, for men. Well, that would be 77, uh 24 for women. But we are expanding the women's program. I'm going to be adding 10 more beds.
Speaker 2:It's just grown tremendously through the yeah, it's massive. Uh, would you mind telling us a little bit like what, what led you to start? You know, cross bridge, what was kind of going on at that time?
Speaker 3:Right, um, I was on staff at a church, uh, in an area that has a lot of drugs and alcohol. It's really considered a major thoroughfare in Nashville for drugs and prostitution. So I believe this, the start of cross bridge, is just born out of seeing a need, and every day I drove up and down this road, murphysboro road or Murphysboro Pike, and I saw the suffering that was out there. And then I had an opportunity to begin to go into jail and Really for worship services. But then I began to see this cycle. Uh, I was in the women's building at first, alone only women, and I would see women go home and then a couple weeks later they were back. So there was this revolving door of them Continuing to come back. And I had no history of addiction, I didn't know anything about it and I'm like why these people keep coming back? You know why don't you want to go to jail? And then, uh, just through working with some recovery people, with some recovery programs, I ended up on the treatment team for, um, our recovery court in Nashville. I began to learn why people come back. Because without the resources and the interventions that are needed, you know they just return to the same situations and you get the same old behavior.
Speaker 3:So for me, the very beginning of it was just seeing the suffering and wanting to do something about that need, not not being willing to just keep looking at it and do nothing. Matter of fact, I told my boss at the time we're either going to do more in this community or I'm not going to come here, because I lived at that time in a city called Franklin. It's an affluent place and you didn't see that kind of suffering. They just don't even allow it. They'll bring you up here in Nashville. You know they're not gonna let the homeless people run around and, you know, mess up their pretty environment. So I could just stay away from here because it was heartbreaking to me to see what I was seeing out there and not do anything about it, and I really felt like we weren't doing anything. So I said and so I, you know, as a faith-based person, I really believe God put it on my heart and it was just such a passion for me that I had to do something or I had to get away from it.
Speaker 2:Why Crossbridge? How did that name come about?
Speaker 3:That's kind of funny, because I wanted the name Bridge and when the attorney that was setting up the nonprofit tried to set that up, he said you can't have that name, it's already taken. I said no, I really need that name. He said you can't have it. So I asked someone who is now co-director of Restoration House, bill Hart, say, hey, you're really great with acronyms and names, what can we put with it? And it wasn't long at all. He just said what about Crossbridge?
Speaker 3:I said, oh, that's perfect, because Bridge a bridge is a connector, and so Crossbridge is trying to connect people with certain things and, of course, being faith-based, we believe the Cross is the connection to God through Jesus Christ, but we're wanting to connect them to so much more than just a relationship with God. We want to connect them to the services that they need and ultimately, crossbridge as a whole, we're connecting people with, like our children that they would go on to higher education, connecting people here, reconnecting them with family sometimes. So it's really about making those connections and that's what a bridge is. The bridge is actually an acronym that stands for building oh my gosh, I haven't had to say this a long time building community leaders, I think R is oh my gosh, I'm not going to go through this right now. All right, we're going to edit that out. I can't believe it. I say it all the time. So you got to edit that out.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Can you do that?
Speaker 1:I mean I'll think about it.
Speaker 3:Okay, all right. Well no, d is developing life skills, g is giving back we want people to give back and E is elevating people.
Speaker 1:So that's anyway so that might stay in the episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great.
Speaker 2:So I've mentioned before I'm the operations manager on the recovery side, kids director, trace the kid, the director over kid power and youth power. But on the recovery side when you mentioned it was one house, six beds. Through those changes were you involved in day to day, like, were you ground level, like getting it started? What was that like?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. At the beginning I was very, very involved and there's some benefits to that. You know there's some disadvantages, but yeah, I knew everybody's name and I like that. I knew their stories. A lot of our clients came from drug court so I knew a lot about them through the drug court process as well. But yeah, I mean, it was everything from renting the houses, determining who would be the leads in the houses, setting up utilities, everything. You know I had another helper who you know we were both just part time, weren't getting paid any money, just just to get it going, and so yeah, but I was very involved in the beginning of Crossbridge as a whole. You know, I say we had to raise money. You can't do these things without money. So planning our first event so we could raise money to start our kids program, so yeah, it was quite a task at the beginning and then of course we grew and that allowed us to hire more staff.
Speaker 2:Well, just during my time here in the last several years I've seen it grow, but it's always been this well run, stable program, nala nonsense. So I always find it fascinating starting out with one house, six beds. You know how it got from that point to now. What are some of the difficulties you run into. You know like was it hard to. I know you went from one house to many before you had the newer facilities, like you know what are some of the obstacles with that trying to get places for more beds.
Speaker 3:Right and the fact that we did just start with six and it was a very gradual increase. It was a commitment on our part. We opened the first house that we would not open a second until we were sure we had a good leader and that the house was in an acceptable neighborhood and that we could afford it and all that, and we thought we could fill it. So it did happen gradually and it's really important that we not just try to blow it up overnight, you know so. But yeah, there were challenges along the way and one of them was leadership. You know we do want this to be a peer led program. We want people leading the houses and now the apartments that have been through the process themselves, as Pastor Bill says. You know we don't want travel agents, we want tour guides, we want people going to talk about the path of recovery, we want people who have been on it and can take you along with them. So we need a good leaders, and no-transcript Leaders fail, you know. They relapse. But again, supervision has been a key to really be plugged in that this is so much more than just a place where you pay your quote, rent every week and then we don't care what you do. We do so Until we had other leaders. You know I had to be very, very present and make sure what was going on in the houses. You know we've heard so many horror stories of things that happen in what one might call a sober living house. That's no such thing and if we don't do our part, we're just doing a real disservice to people who are serious about recovery. So it that was one of the biggest challenges is making sure we had leaders who themselves were serious about recovery, and Oftentimes those people they don't necessarily have a whole lot of time in recovery, but we're seeing the potential for them to lead. So that was a big challenge. One of the bigger challenges that a lot of nonprofits face early on is funding, of course, and we're really, really blessed from day one of restoration house that the department of mental health substance abuse services In Tennessee provided us a really large grant that we got monthly. So that really helped and it allowed us to do things for people that maybe some other houses can't do.
Speaker 3:But that big challenge of leadership, which leads to another challenge, is the heartbreak of this kind of work. You know that for me, because I had not been around this. It wasn't, hadn't been a part of my life, all my life seeing addiction and the toll it takes. And so you know, and again, I'm a I'm a hands-on person and I do this because I really care about people. So I tend to get close to people and then to see people relapse and go back out and sometimes die or Sometimes really pour my life into someone, you know, to pour our resources into someone and then when they relapse they want to put that back on us and, you know, literally stab us in the back or in me personally. You know I've had threats and so those things like that.
Speaker 3:You know I had to learn Really early on that, rick, that you know when people relapse, that's not my fault. I had a mentor that told me, hey, you're not that powerful, so I had to learn. You know it's not my, my, what I did. You know it was their choice and you know I probably was a pretty, I was probably code-appendant for sure when I started this. So I had to Let go of those controlling things. You know we have boundaries but we don't try to control people. You know you can live within the boundaries or you can leave, but yeah, just, it took a lot of change in myself. You know, for us to grow this program. I had to grow or we weren't gonna be successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Chris has talked about in the past about like he knew that when he got into recovery he needed to buy a nice suit because he knew he'd be attending funerals, and so I'm curious if you talk about some of the times that like hardships that you faced or even felt hopeless in this work.
Speaker 3:I don't think I was ever without hope, because I believe if there's like there's hope and that's something we do here at restoration we don't give up on anybody. Now it might be that you have to leave because you're making the program unsafe. It might be that you're not able to come back. We like to give lots of people second, third chances. But if you've made the program unsafe for others, but even though people might not come back, or they do or they're gone, they're out there. If they're alive, there's hope for them. And I think that's really what keeps me in this field is that I do believe there's hope. I've seen it. I know that people's lives can be turned around, and we deal with a lot of people who do come here and they are hopeless. You know we're there last shot sometimes, and that's what we're here to do. Really, I think to be dispensers of hope, to say, hey, look at Chris, if you think you're hopeless, well, listen where he came in here and where he is now. We actually have the proof that you can have hope.
Speaker 3:And so I've never have felt hopeless, but definitely there's been discouraging days certainly and it's been tied to you know, losing people, to see people go back out and die, you know so needlessly. It just doesn't have to end that way. I hate it when that's the ending, but I do know for every addict that dies, I believe the lives are safe because they see, wow, that could be me and I don't want. I don't want that to be my ending.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I know, just in my time here I came to scrub all things out and I spent a long time in active addiction. But, you know, working in recovery and and staying clean served myself, you know, as a whole different ball game and I've been able to Benefit from all those lessons that you learned through the years, because it's just Starting from where you did to where it is now. Were there ever moments when you felt like giving up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there were times where I think those hurts that came along the way where People that I never thought like even valued, trusted employees that would then just really betray the organization and me. It's very, very hurtful, you know, and then I feel like why am I doing this? And I have to remember why am I doing this and it's you know this is not about me. It's an opportunity to you know, in my case as a pastor, to lead people to Christ really, where they'll really have a new life. And you know we were promised in the scripture. We talked about this in our service Sunday. You will have troubles. That's one of the promises.
Speaker 3:So I've had people walk along beside me when I went through those times where I really did want to quit and it wasn't because it was just because I was hurt. You know it's really painful, it really hurts when people act like that and you know just say really hateful, mean things. You know those accusations of you're just all about the money if they could only see you know how we weren't or that you know that just crazy stories they would go out and tell like I was getting kickbacks from a court. You know Just really hurtful things that I'm like what? So those were, those are days that are hard. You know that I'm like, well, I don't do this anymore. You know I really want to do this. I've said that before. But there's always been somebody did, you know, to reel me back in and say, hey, come on now, let's get focused. Why are you here and why aren't you expecting these things? You know we work with people who are sick and when they're not using that act differently. But when they start using again, then they're really not the same person.
Speaker 3:And I've had people who say those horrible, ugly things that are so crushing and then later come back and say I'm so sorry. You know, that was my addiction talking and I'm really sorry for the way I hurt you. So you know, like I said, I'm glad for the people around me who, in those difficult times, didn't say yeah, you're right, go ahead, quit, you know. But and? And what keeps me? You know, what is so important to for any nonprofit is those people who believe in us and support us, and that Realizing that they believe in what we're doing, we believe in it. And whoever thought this was gonna be easy, you know, it's just not gonna be. It is not easy work.
Speaker 2:Well, I know that me personally. I've learned about forgiveness, mercy and grace here like I never have my entire life, I guess because so much was showed to me. But I watched day in and day out everybody that's involved in this organization. They literally emptied themselves out and the work that's done here and I and I see this is where I learned not grow weary and doing good.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I look at it and like damn, I don't know if I can put up with that for 13 years, just constant pushing forward, pushing through the hard times, because it does. We hate to see people go back to a way they know is not going to work. But I know that I've learned those things here and I'm glad you learned the lessons for us.
Speaker 3:If I could tell you a story about that scripture don't become weary and well-doing. Early on, when I first began working really in compassionate stuff and working with folks along Murfreesboro Road, I used to teach a Bible study on Wednesday night and on Wednesday night this guy came up to the church where I was and they brought him to me. Anybody came up wanting money or whatever. They said, well, take him to the pastor's seat. So he comes up and he says if I could just have $5. And I said look, I don't give people money, I just don't like to give cash. We'll get you food. He said no, listen, I need propane to heat my house or some type of fuel to heat their house here. My family's cold. So I just felt impressed to give it to him. So I said I'm gonna give you this money and if you go out and use that for drugs, I'm just gonna pray God will get you, so don't do it. He said no, ma'am, I promise you it's for what I'm saying. So I said, okay, so, against what I normally do, I gave him the money and then a couple weeks later and he even said I'll pay you back and I'm like okay, no, need, it's a gift, whatever.
Speaker 3:So a couple weeks later I'm in there teaching and they come back. His name was Billy. They said, hey, billy's here again. And right away I thought he is here for more money. He was there to pay that $5 back and that really taught me a lesson about not judging people and I put that $5 in my Bible in this right where the scripture is do not become weary and well-doing. And my kids would see that money.
Speaker 3:Sometimes they say can I have that $5? I said no, that $5 is a reminder to me that you know, when somebody walks in the doors here and says, hey, I'm in the administration house, I don't know, and I've heard leaders do things like this say, huh, that one ain't gonna make it. Or you know, I used to work with a woman on drug court team who said, hey, I guess I can say this on my bullshit meter's really pegging on this one. They are never gonna make it. We don't do that and a lot of the reason is because that one situation where I thought he was back there to ask for more money and he was there to pay it back that what I think is not necessarily right. Everybody comes in here with a blank slate, not the winners and the losers. The program is set up for everybody to succeed. It's their choices that make the difference, and we're here for everyone. And we're not writing anybody off at the beginning or any point in time. Like I said, if they're alive, they're still hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, now that we're talking about weariness, the work we do leaves us exhausted at the end of the day, and I think we can all agree that, like, we feel good about how tired we are at the end of the day because our time was well spent. And I'm just curious because my wife points out that I'm tired when I get home. And I'm curious what drives you today, Because you well Tina does not work 40 hours a week. I don't know how many hours it is, but it's a lot, because I get emails at midnight sometimes and I'm curious what drives you to keep pushing and find the energy to continue doing what you do.
Speaker 3:Well, you two people are part of the reason. You know, having a wonderful team. It's so important and we are so incredibly blessed to have folks that we do. I don't work as much as I used to. I did at the beginning. It's almost like starting a business. You have to really pour yourself into it and now I'm really getting to sit back and see the rewards of that early work.
Speaker 3:But what I think is really important and I would say this to recovering people and people who work in recovery self-care is key. It's key to us here in our policies. Like our full-time people, they have the weekends off. They're supposed to take it. You know I'm on call during those times. Sometimes they don't do it, but you know I wouldn't have made it this far in this line of work had I not changed some of my practices about self-care Because it didn't used to do so well. And you know, yes, you will get emails in the middle of the night because I'm old and I wake up in the middle of the night and then my brain starts thinking I can't go back to sleep. I'm like, well, I've never sent email about that. I sent emails to myself. So don't forget what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3:But overall I feel like I have a really balanced life today and the reason that I can leave this place and go home and rest is because the people everyone here is doing their job. I don't have to worry about is something crazy going on at Kid Power today, because I know you're not gonna let that happen and I don't have to worry about. Oh wow, is our house like those others? Are people over there drinking and drugging in the house, you know are men and women running through each other's houses? I don't have to worry about that Because I know I've got Chris and his team that they love the program like I do. That's been passed on to a new generation that cares as much as I do that they're not gonna let anybody do that to our program, so I'm able to again.
Speaker 3:This is I've been at this a long time, but I'm at a place in life right now and professionally where I can really think about legacy. And what do I wanna do in the years that I have left to see that this continues, because that's really important to me. It's kind of like a baby that was birth. You want it to keep growing and grow up and have children of its own all that, but having a wonderful staff is really key to that. And then encouraging them to take care of themselves while I take care of myself, it's just really key for working in this field.
Speaker 3:There's something called compassion fatigue and people who work in compassionate fields. They will burn out and then for those who are addicts and alcoholics, they'll lead to relapse if they don't do self-care. So it's really important and I encourage people who might be listening If you work in the field or if you're a recovering person, that you have to take care of yourself. Some people say it's a selfish program and we do have to look out for ourselves or we're not gonna be able to help anybody else. So that's what I have to do.
Speaker 1:I'm curious I'd like to back up a minute and so you talked about when you started this program that you didn't know a lot about recovery and addiction. And so I'm curious what are some of the biggest changes in belief and mindset you have today and what you want other people to know about addiction?
Speaker 3:Right, and I would say, when I started going into the jail I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 3:By the time I started Restoration House I had a really legalistic idea, and the biggest changes were just me and a person as a whole. I had been a really legalistic Christian. I understand people listening to this may not understand that, but so a best definition I could give is like being more concerned about what I do than who I am, and I had this whole log of dos and don'ts. I mean it would be embarrassing for me to tell you the things that I believed, and I believed God cared about a lot of things that today I don't think he does. And what I believed about addiction and alcoholism. I just certainly did not believe it was a disease. You know, I thought this is something you chose to do. I had no idea about the loss of a power to choose If people, I cared about people who were drinking and drugging and I had a wonderful plan for your life. But I really thought it was all about choice and that if people were drunk it's because they wanted to be, and so that's really.
Speaker 3:Some of the biggest changes for me is learning about the science of addiction, learning about the brain disease. Yes, there is an element of choice there, but once an addict makes that choice to pick up, it's not all about choice anymore. And so we're here to help people develop those tools so they don't pick back up. And that was big for me Realizing that people aren't in this because they want to be, and also learning about trauma and realizing my own trauma and how that played a part in my life. I would have told you I didn't have any trauma growing up. Yeah, I did, and I figured that out and worked on my own pain and realizing that people are really acting out of just unmedicated pain, not having dealt with their childhood trauma. We believe everybody's got some level of that.
Speaker 3:But I think for me that was a big learning experience too to realize that in this program we have to get beneath that drugs and alcohol that's just a symptom of a bigger thing and getting there and helping people to work on that and receive healing, because otherwise it's just like if you've got a broken leg man, you've got to get to a doctor. You just can't live with that pain. If that bone's shooting out your leg, you've got to do something. People who have had such extreme trauma that they are in so much pain, they will look for something to medicate that pain. They have to. You cannot walk around with that, and so we want to help them get the healing they need, so that pain is not so great for them and that they can have other tools to deal with the pain than to just turn to drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2:I know we talked about some of the low points, but I would like to along the way. Is there one moment during the several years you've been doing this that it was like success, that you seen that your love and care and investment was paying off? Is there any moments along there? Like I said, it's grown so much over the years the building the participants get to be in. Is there anything that just stands out during that time?
Speaker 3:Those moments are just all about people. It's just to see people who had 200 arrests now have 13 years clean, to see someone like you who, literally, you've been raised from death to life. This is just kind of a side note. One of the things that I love seeing is when people do get healthy and then they're able to have healthy relationships, and we've seen people get married as a result of this program and have healthy marriages. Just to see, and then that tells me this generational cycle is being broken, that that next generation, so any high point, anything that I would say. That's just the best part of this. It's always going to be connected to a story and just unbelievable. We could tell so many stories all day and there are people who would listen and say there is no way. That's true, but it is, and so it's just amazing how they can and do change and really how the program works. It really does work.
Speaker 1:And outside the people. I don't think that when you talked about gave a general information about Crossbridge, I don't think you talked too much about what we currently are celebrating, what's going on in our facility now. Originally, we started in houses that we were renting and stuff like that, and so I want to give you an opportunity for us to celebrate that's something. That's not people, that's where we're at.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, we have this big, beautiful facility and we knew when we used to have nine houses out in the community that was so challenging to really supervise and for our staff to get to each one.
Speaker 1:And vans going everywhere.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly. And we were able to buy a property that had two women's houses. So we moved all the women over here and it had two empty lots that I had a vision that I wanted to build on and I knew we wanted corporate offices there, we wanted meeting spaces to be able to do programming and we wanted apartments. Well, actually I just wanted housing and then when I talked to a general contractor he said, hey, the best way to do this is apartments. You know, build up, don't build out.
Speaker 3:So we decided on this multi-story building, and just to have everybody here on this one campus has made such a change in our program. I think. Supervision is easier, availability of staff is easier and just the miracle I mean really that we have this building and that it's debt-free because of some amazing grants and now being able to renovate our women's houses again through grants. I mean, if people who might be listening, who are not associated with us, could come and look at the housing we have here, they'd say this is recovery housing, because I don't think there's anything like it, or certainly not very many places that this is where the living environment for people in recovery is so amazing and we think that environment's important. It speaks value to them Like, yeah, this is a wonderful place I live in. They must really think I'm valuable because we do.
Speaker 1:Thank you yeah and I said something that's not about people, but the reality is is that we've had a lot of very generous people help make this happen. So I'm curious what does what's your vision look like for crossbridge for the future or continued growth?
Speaker 3:You know, that's something that I think about a lot, and I see people who are what I would call visionaries and they start, let's say, you know McDonald's and they got one, and then they want ten, and they want fifty, and then they want the world wide, whatever. And I really don't have those kinds of desires I don't think that's because I'm old, you know, and maybe it'll be the next leader that says, hey, we want crossbridge Chad Nugget.
Speaker 3:Yeah or we want crossbridge you know Birmingham, I don't know, maybe they will and I'll be all for it or restoration house in those other cities. What I do see that I would like to see us do I would like to see us do outpatient treatment someday and I want to see us do some housing for women with children, because it is such a huge need. Many times, when women are graduating this program, they're they're able to get their children back. But where can you go? You know we are located in Nashville, where rents are outrageous. So to have some housing for women where their kids could reside, we can't do that here, and I mean maybe in the future, you know it could be men with children there are men who have their kids too so, but just and really more Availability of housing for people as they transition. I would love to have an apartment complex where our alumni could move into it and, you know, live there and it be affordable, because there's just not affordable housing in Nashville and many of them need to live Close to the bus line, which puts them in the downtown area, which is very expensive.
Speaker 3:So for me it's like expanding that and then, with our kid power program, I mean I'd love to see us be able to do more with families. We're gonna hopefully open a center on the fifth floor of this building at some point. I think that'll give us the avenue to reach out more to parents and offer some services to parents. So I don't have this big grandiose dream of there being cross bridge nationwide. I just really don't. And but again, maybe it's like I said, that may be the future for cross bridge when someone else wants to take it to those levels. But for me those things I identified really Intense. About patient treatment, I think is really important. I think that some of the treatment that's offered is not really helping people so much and I know that we could do that. And then again that big, big need for housing for women with children and for our folks that graduate here.
Speaker 1:For those of us who don't know what that means, can you tell us what outpatient? What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3:well, there's residential treatment, where you would live at a facility and you don't leave, or anything like 28 day treatment, where the person lives in a treatment facility and they basically go to treatment all day, intensive outpatient as you do come four days a week, usually three hours a day, but you live outside the facility and so it is an intensive, you know, like 12 hours a week continuing in treatment. But it does allow people still the time to work or to live at home with their families or to live perhaps in restoration house.
Speaker 3:So 28 day treatment is 99.9% not enough for people you either got to go on to sober living, and for many people, the next step is Just it's usually a 16 week Intensive outpatient treatment that I think that we could do a lot of good with that.
Speaker 1:Chris, you got any other questions?
Speaker 2:No, I'm just glad that people are getting an opportunity to see the wonderful person that we work for and that Me you've mentioned. You know this, I'm Always quick to tell people what restoration, cross bridge but has done for me. But it was the relationships I've had you know during that that it's doing goods contagious, you know. And seeing you, pastor bill, sure, everybody's involved just constantly doing everything they can to give someone the the best opportunity to change their life. You know I'm blessed to be part of that. But it all starts, you know, working with you guys. You know, because I wanted what you had, even though you wasn't.
Speaker 2:You know, necessarily we're coming from substance use. I heard you all the time use recovery principles, you know, and that you know. You just, you want to have that purpose in your life. And I tell participants all the time, you know, because there's so many participants there's no way to get to, to know every one of them in debt personally and and I tell them all the time I've had to bless and get to know you personally and just how much this Organization means to you, the people in it, the people at work here. So I'm just I'm really glad you got to come on and kind of, so people can see where it started at, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right here, and you know I'm really grateful that I've got to be able to do this with my life. The older I get, the more I'm impressed, and just remember that we do only get one life. There's no dress rehearsal, this is it, and I want this one life to count for something that will outlive me, and I believe that it will yeah, and before we close out, want to give you an opportunity to share with people how they can get involved with crossbridge.
Speaker 3:Well, they can get involved. If they need help, they can get touch with us and see if they'd be a good candidate for the program, but also they can give on our website. You've heard us talk about kid power, new power, today and perhaps you could be a mentor and you know, just come be a part of what we're doing here. We do have an opportunity for outsiders to be with us on Sundays and Tuesdays, so I'm assuming through the podcast people know how to get in touch with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah so just reach out and we all always need donations of things like clothing, hygiene products, things like that that most our folks come in here with nothing, so the kinds of things that people would need just getting started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well. Thanks for joining us today. Addiction isn't going to get something get better with tougher laws. It's going to come from people sharing their stories. So we know every person's story is impactful and it matters. So thanks for joining us today.