Root Center donated $8k and partnered with St. Vincent de Paul Middletown to help fight hunger
July 14, 2020
Hunger hits our community at its core. It impacts everything, undermining feelings of safety and security and creating strain in families and communities. The Root Center for Advanced Recovery recognizes the critical role that food security plays in our patient’s everyday lives, and for this reason, we have partnered with the St. Vincent de Paul Middletown
food pantry
/soup kitchen and donated $8,000 to help address hunger in the Middletown area.
Our St Vincent De Paul Middletown check presentation ceremony on 7/14/2020 was a huge success!!! 
Our donation will cover food costs for one month and help to meet the increasing need caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our donation will cover food costs for one month and help to meet the increasing need caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.Amazing things happen when nonprofits support nonprofits 
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! Photo featuring: Steven Zuckerman, President and CEO, Root Center for Advanced Recovery; MaryEllen Shuckerow, Executive Director, St. Vincent de Paul; Bruce Simons, Board President, Root Center for Advanced Recovery
Recent Posts
Summer seemingly flew by for us here at the Root Center. From events to new projects, we were busy! Since our last newsletter, we welcomed a new cohort of Fall Semester interns, spruced up our Weston Street facilities, and had our annual Overdose Awareness Day Event, among so much more! We just successfully held our first ever Root center Charity Golf Tournament to benefit St. Vincent de Paul Middletown at Lyman Orchards Golf Club, and we were able to donate $25,000 to help them continue to do amazing work for our communities! Keep reading for more details and exciting updates!
Our FIRST EVER Charity Golf Tournament was a Hole in One! This event was so special to us, and we are so thrilled to have been able to host such a successful day for all of our golfers and guests! We're also excited to be able to donate 100% of proceeds from this fundraiser to Executive Director Maryellen Shuckerow and St. Vincent de Paul Middletown to help them continue their amazing and crucial community work.
International Overdose Awareness Day is recognized yearly on August 31st. This year, the Root Center for Advanced Recovery hosted our Annual International Overdose Awareness Day Remembrance Ceremony in our Manchester Memorial Garden. This year, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported 929 overdose deaths. This number was down more than 20% from the year prior, but there is still a lot of work that remains to be done so that no other family has to endure a such a loss. Every year, during Overdose Awareness Week, Root invites the community to join us as we come together to honor and remember those lost to overdose, and support those still struggling. The event was held in our Memorial Garden, w e began with some brief remarks from Root Leadership, Community Leaders, like Senator Saud Anwar, Senator MD Rahman, and State Representative Geoff Luxenberg. We also heard from a Root Center patient! Like last year, we put out a handmade box gifted to us by a patient at our Torrington Clinic, who is celebrating two years in recovery. The box is meant to encourage the community to write notes with the provided paper, and leave them in between the stones of our Remembrance Wall. This year, we included a Burning Ceremony in the garden, burning the notes collected last year and allowing the wind to take the ashes and wishes wherever they're meant to be. It was a beautiful display of hope, with the warmth of the fire offering comfort to those impacted by the disease of addiction. The box will remain out in the garden until 9/2. The public is welcome to stop by to visit, leave a note, and enjoy the serene beautiful sanctuary.
