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Karen's Place celebrates graduation, anniversary
Graduates of Karen's Place receive certificates after completing their program as the Anniversary Banquet and Graduation is conducted on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, at Christ Temple Church Health and Life Center in Huntington.
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HUNTINGTON -- A new beginning started for 13 women Saturday night after officially graduating from Karen's Place, a drug and alcohol addiction recovery center in Louisa, Ky.
The graduation ceremony and celebration took place at Christ Temple Church in Huntington, which is a major donor to the national Teen Challenge program and home church for several women in the program.
Tim Robinson, the chairman and chief executive officer of Karen's Place, was elated to see the 13 ladies complete the program, which adds to the 11 who have graduated in the past 12 months. He also was grateful and humble to celebrate Karen's Place reaching its one-year anniversary on Friday.
"There are a lot of people who have helped us get here," Robinson said. "We pushed through the controversy of a drug rehab facility in the community, and now, lives are being changed."
Those who graduated Saturday included Melinda Cook and Alletha Renee Dobson from the 37-day program; Heather Blair, Billie Hall, Tabitha Harmon, Sherry Horn, Jamie Lynch, Nancy May, Kira McCarthy and Samantha Sexton from the 100-day program; and Casey Burchett, Brigette Duba and Tami White from the six-month program.
"It is exciting and freeing," said Ginny Morrison, who graduated in August from the program. She now works as a peer mentor at Karen's Place and is thankful that it's not a typical rehab facility.
"Being faith based isn't a typical rehab program," Morrison said. "We focus a lot on inner healing and facing a lot of problems. Drug and alcohol isn't he problem. It's a problem of the heart."
The program currently serves women from Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, and also has had residents from Tennessee and Florida.
All the women who complete the program are eligible to stay on as an intern to serve the various needs of the program. Robinson said they hope to focus in 2012 on the expansion services for those after they complete the program.
Karen's Place is named for Karen Byrd, who was killed by a 14-year-old drug dealer in Huntington in 2004. Her parents, Raymond and Bernadine Byrd, helped start a faith-based program through the court system that ministered to more than 300 individuals struggling with addiction.
