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Event: Rally for Recovery!
Organizing Your Recovery Walk: Soberfest 2004
By Carol McHale
A really great dessert is created by using a good recipe and only the best ingredients. With that in mind, the10th Annual Soberfest in Genesee County, Michigan turned out to be down-right delicious! It’s not a secret recipe and any community can make it. Just follow these directions:
Mix together approximately 1,200 members of the recovering community including their friends and families, a Walk for Recovery, a 12-team softball tournament, horseshoe and euchre tournaments, karaoke, volleyball, a trout pond, dunk tank, magic show, kids games, clowns, a $1 lunch (hot dog, bag of chips and soda pop), lots of donations, and oh yeah, about 125 volunteers! Sprinkle liberally with lots of hugs, laughter, and love and bake in a breezy, sunny, summer day for best results. The addition of rain (three years in a row) will not ruin the recipe. Instead, it will bring out a very interesting flavor!
Asked what he likes about the Soberfest, longtime volunteer Willie Rawls laid out a few reasons. “I especially enjoy watching the kids have fun, reconnecting with old friends, and the sober environment.” Is this a recipe for success, I asked? “Why sure it is!” he said. Pam Heany, a Project Vox advocate added, “the Soberfest and the Walk for Recovery is truly a day of miracles and I am proud to be a voice of hope for those still afflicted. These events give us a great opportunity to speak out.”
The free event is advertised by distributing posters and brochures at 12-step meetings, treatment facilities, community health agencies, and placing advertisements in local newspapers. Television and print media are invited to cover the event and their reports are always positive.
The successful Soberfest recipe was created by members of the M.O.S.T. (Maintaining and Organizing Sobriety Together) Group at the General Motors Truck Assembly plant with support from UAW Local 598. Their mission to give back to the community has yielded some positive results. “One result is showing the community that you can have a festival without a beer tent and more fun with safer outcomes,” said M.O.S.T group member Leonard Neely, “and another result is that by putting a face on recovery, the community is able to see that recovery works!”
For more information, or to learn how to host your own Soberfest, contact UAW Local 598 Work Family Representative Tom McHale at the GM Flint Truck Assembly plant by calling 810-236-8180 or e-mail him.