GREENFIELD — A couple of hours before the Recovery Café in Greenfield opened to the public, Pam Cox was getting things ready for what was expected to be a fairly large afternoon and evening crowd. In addition to offering a free meal and coffee, the Café provides recovery programming to help people get their lives on the right track.
The Recovery Café is a membership-based community meant to bring together those who have struggled with substance use, mental illness, incarceration and homelessness to help them make the shift from surviving to thriving.
Cox, the kitchen coordinator, also hosts those coming into the Café. She came into the Café two years ago to check it out and never left. She’s also been trained to be a recovery coach.
“I believe God led me here,” Cox said. “This place really is like my second home.”
Cox knows a thing or two about addiction and recovery. She is a recovering alcoholic who spent time in the county jail before transitioning to outside programming through the Recovery Café, a place she now works for.
The Recovery Café, for those 18 and over, has been open just a little over two years now. Organizers started out helping only a handful of people, but the programming and need has grown to a full-serve center with over 90 county residents currently taking part in recovery programming.
Linda Ostewig, who founded The Landing Place in 2013 to help troubled youth ages 13 to 19, said that program has morphed into a true recovery center as well and is being run by her daughter, Kara Ostewig. The Recovery Café, located next to the Landing, is Ostewig’s second major self-help project and opened in February 2022.
The Café has become a place for people who visit the Landing and the Talitha Koum Woman’s Recovery House to visit and find real support through companionship and recovery classes.
“Anyone is welcome to come in and hang out have a cup of coffee, play and listen to music,” Ostewig said. “We’ve got over 90 members coming in working on recovery and taking classes because recovery is all about connection and here they find a belonging.”
Ostewig runs the Café along with Teriea Bryant and employees like Anna Campbell, a recovery specialist and volunteer, Patty Tackitt as well as people like Cox who are taking on the responsibility of helping those adjust from a life of addiction to clean living.
“If it were not for this place, I’ll be honest with you, I’d be six feet under,” Cox said.
One of the other employees who has helped the Café grow over the past several months and is taking on real responsibility is Danielle Brashear. Like Cox, Brashear, 29, also spent time in the county jail for severe drug issues. She’ll be two years sober in June and is contributing in a positive manor to the community.
Brashear noted she just got her first apartment after having spent a year prior in the Talitha Koum Woman’s Recovery House getting her feet on the ground.
“I had to learn to be sober,” Brashear said. “I feel like between God, Linda (Ostewig), and Sheriff Brad Burkhart, they phased me into a whole new community and I have to say it’s just more fun being sober.”
Brashear noted she now loves working in this type of career helping others because she knows firsthand what people trying to get and stay sober are going through.
“I can relate to them, and there is no judgement coming from me because I was right there,” Brashear said. “I feel like it’s divine intervention for anyone who walks through that door that there was definitely a purpose to what they’ve been through. I feel like God does make a way because he’s got that perfect timing.”
Brashear feels like she’s a shining example of what life without drug or alcohol addiction can be.
“There are a lot of people working here who went through addiction, and for me they are role models and that’s what I want to be,” Brashear said referring to Tackitt, who she looks up to as a mother figure.
The Recovery Café is touching lives both inside and outside the jail. Starting in January, they began taking what they call community chats from Recovery Café to inside the county jail for both men and women.
“It’s a soft hand-off,” Ostewig said.
Their hope is to talk with inmates while inside jail and develop strong relationships so upon release, they can visit the Recovery Café and use them as a piece of their recovery plan.
The Café offers Recovery Circles, a small group check-in, twice a day on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays. They also offer free dinner at 5 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday and a free breakfast and lunch each Sat at 9 a.m. and noon.
They also have a place were people can take a free shower, wash their clothes get free snacks, coffee and water.
The Café feature community corners once a month where someone from another resource in the community comes in and teaches members what they have to offer and they in turn learn about Café and what it can do for the community. A weekly class of some type is available from everything like creating vision boards to painting rocks to jewelry making to cooking class, in addition to weekly recovery classes.
“For the longest time, we were not sure how it was going to grow. We now see the transition and we see how God has helped us grow,” Ostewig said. “All we want to do is offer life to people.”
Some of the classes offered in the past include, an AA study group, Recognizing Co-Dependency, Healing the Relationship with your Mother, Men’s Bible Study, and Healing Trauma classes.
“The thing that is great about the classes is, if you want to get help, we’ll find a resource for you,” Cox said.
The Recovery Café operates solely on grants and donations and is hosting its largest fundraiser of the year, a Luau, Thursday, May 9 at 5:30 p.m. Dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. The event is open to all at the Adaggios Banquet Hall, 5999 W. Memory Lane, Greenfield.
