From left, Kara Cole, Tiara Darby, Linda Ostewig and Teriea Bryant pose for a photo at The Landing.
GREENFIELD — Kara Cole and her aunt, Teriea Bryant, have devoted their lives to helping those in addiction.
Cole serves as the house manager and Bryant a board member for the Talitha Koum house, a women’s recovery house in Greenfield.
The women co-lead a recovery group for teenage girls at The Landing, a local recovery support center, where Bryant also manages fundraising, event planning and administrative tasks.
Both women say their lives have been tainted by addiction in one way or another, and both are driven to share the joy of recovery with others.
Cole credits her recovery after 12 years battling addiction with saving her life.
Her aunt was among the supporters who made her recovery possible.
Although Bryant doesn’t personally struggle with addiction, she grew up the daughter of an alcoholic father, alongside her sister, Linda Ostewig, who founded The Landing.
The siblings saw firsthand how damaging addiction can be to an individual, as well as a family.
Through The Landing and the Talitha Koum House, they work to help those struggling stay on the path to recovery.
While Ostewig is often on the receiving end of accolades for founding The Landing and the recovery house, she nominated her sister and daughter for the Daily Reporter’s “Angels Among Us” series this year.
“These two go far and beyond to help those less fortunate, especially our youth,” she said.
Cole and Bryant co-lead a group of older teenage girls at the Landing on Wednesday nights, serving and mentors who make themselves readily available throughout the week for those in need of support.
“It doesn’t matter what time it is or day it is, if one of those students needs them, they are there,” said Ostewig, who said the women are equally available for the women living at the Talitha Koum house.
Bryant has been involved with The Landing since it was founded 10 years ago and helped launch the Recovery Cafe for adults and Discovery Cafe for kids.
As a mentor, she shares her personal experiences to instill a sense of hope.
“I didn’t have the best life growing up, and I was in some terrible relationships, so I want to be able to show them that there is hope at the end of all of that. You don’t have to stay stuck in those areas,” she said. “If we can catch them at this early age so they don’t have to go down the same roads we went down for so long, then that’s the most rewarding thing.”
Both Cole and Bryant say they turn to God as a higher power, and encourage others to do the same.
“If I can show them any glimpse of that inspiration, then that’s rewarding to me,” said Bryant, 56.
She’s often inspired to see young people who sought help at The Landing return as young adults, some happily married, some new parents, and others who have joined the military or have secured rewarding jobs.
“That means that we planted a little bit of a seed somewhere along the way,” said Bryant, who lives in New Palestine.
Cole, who lives in Irvington, has managed the Talitha Koum house since it opened in 2018.
She not only supports residents in their recovery — leading them through a 12-week course on uncovering and healing trauma — but also plans fun outings like bowling, biking and hiking.
“I take them to and from work or class or wherever they need to go,” said Cole, 37.
“I try to have a lot of fun with them because when I got sober it was like, ‘What am I going to do now?’ Everything in my life had been associated with getting high or drunk, so my main goal was to really teach them how to laugh and have fun in sobriety,” she said.
“When you get sober, you’re kind of meeting yourself for the first time, especially if you’ve never been sober before,” said Cole, who shares her own experience with residents. “These women are like 40 and 50 years old, being sober for the first time, and they don’t have any idea what they like to do, so we try to help them figure that out.”
When she’s not mentoring those in recovery at the recovery house or The Landing, Cole is taking classes to become a licensed social worker. She hopes to open a private counseling practice someday, to help people with addiction and trauma issues.
“I just love to learn about people and help people. I love human beings,” she said.
Cole said it would feel wrong not to use her own recovery story to help others.
“When you’ve been in a very dark place and you’ve uncovered a lot of pain it feels like hell on earth, but once you get a taste of freedom, you get this fire inside of you that makes you want to help everybody get well,” she said. “It would be selfish of me to have that experience and not help someone else find it as well.”
For information on The Landing, visit TheLandingPlaceHC.com.
To learn more about the Talitha Koum House, visit TalithaKoumTK.org.
