‘Empowering Mothers, Building Futures’ capital campaign seeks to raise funds for new facility for Mothers Making a Change women’s residential treatment program
The Highland Rivers Foundation today launched a $5.8 million capital campaign to raise funds for the purchase and renovations of a permanent facility to house Mothers Making a Change, a women’s residential substance use treatment program operated by Highland Rivers Behavioral Health.
Mothers Making a Change (MMAC) is a 25-bed residential program for women who are pregnant, post-partum or have young children. The six-to-nine month program provides comprehensive treatment and support that helps women achieve sobriety, enhance parenting skills, and reunify with their children and families. MMAC also includes a recovery-to-work initiative that helps women find gainful employment, while connecting them to safe and stable housing. The program has served nearly 3,000 women since 2009, and 100 percent of babies born in the program are born drug free.
“Mothers Making a Change is an important and valuable program – it not only helps mothers achieve sobriety, but recovery, and helps break the generational cycle of substance use and addiction,” said Melanie Dallas, CEO of Highland Rivers Behavioral Health. “The support of our community – whether individuals, foundations or corporations – means healthier mothers, healthier families and a healthier community. It is an investment not only today but an investment in the future, and the return on that investment benefits all of us.”
Currently housed in an apartment complex in Cobb County – a community-based setting considered innovative when the program began in the early 1990s – MMAC occupies more than a dozen individual units. This fragmented arrangement has proven to be inefficient, while its location within a public complex has resulted in numerous safety and security risks to the women in the program.
After nearly three years seeking a more suitable place for the program, Highland Rivers Behavioral Health has the opportunity to re-purpose a facility in Austell where it (and previously Cobb County Community Services Board) has delivered behavioral health services for more than 25 years. While the building has adequate space to house the program, substantial renovations are needed – adding bedrooms for the women in the program, an industrial kitchen, therapeutic childcare space, family meeting rooms, green space, privacy fencing and more.
In February, the Austell City Council voted unanimously to rezone the property for a residential facility, and the Cobb County Board of Commissioners has supported the Highland Rivers’ plan to keep the program in Cobb County.
In launching the Empowering Mothers, Building Futures capital campaign, the Highland Rivers Foundation has established the Highland Circle with several options for those wishing to make a tax-deductible gift, including marquee sponsorships, annual giving and installment donations. Details about the MMAC campaign and the Highland Circle can be found on the Highland Rivers Foundation website at https://highlandriversfoundation.org/priorities/mothers-making-a-change/, where donors can also make gifts securely online. Scan the QR code below to read the Foundation’s detailed MMAC Capital Campaign Case for Support booklet.
