By Peter Currier | pcurrier@lowellsun.com | Lowell Sun
Introducing Riverbend: Lowell House announces name change at Currents of Change Gala (lowellsun.com)
Lowell House held its Currents of Change Gala fundraiser Thursday evening at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium where a number of clients were honored with the Client Achievement Awards, and the organization announced it would be undergoing a name change.
The addiction recovery organization has carried the Lowell House name for its entire 53 years of existence, stemming from its humble beginnings in the Mill City. Now, having expanded its operations to communities like Haverhill, Reading, Lawrence, Tewksbury and Methuen, the organization can be found up and down the Merrimack River, which the new name references.
“Riverbend is not just a tribute to the Merrimack River, which runs through Lowell and the other cities we provide care,” said CEO Michael Reinke. “But just like the river, our clients’ journey is not always straight forward.”
The name change was immediate, with a new website for the organization already going live before the gala concluded.
When it comes to substance abuse, Reinke said “everyone knows someone,” citing statistics claiming that one third of all households in the U.S. have someone with a substance use disorder. That figure, Reinke said, is likely higher because those numbers are self reported. Only about half of those people seek recovery, Reinke said, which itself can be an extraordinarily difficult journey.
“One of the big challenges for anybody in recovery is that the day you went into recovery is also the day you end up losing many, if not all, of your friends,” said Reinke, touting Riverbend’s Recovery Cafe in Lowell. “You need a whole new set of friends who will support you in that journey.”
Though it is a difficult goal for somebody in the depths of substance abuse, it is one that is attainable, which the gala sought to highlight through the annual Client Achievement Awards, which are given to clients of the organization who have completed its recovery programs. The two dozen awards were presented by Riverbend board member and Middlesex Sheriff’s Office Reentry Specialist Louie Diaz, who personally experienced substance abuse and its consequences in his younger years. Diaz worked for Lowell House before working in the sheriff’s office.
Diaz ended up in prison in the 1990s, and chose that moment to try to turn his life around, serving as an advocate and reentry specialist for those experiencing what he went through.
“When I got to prison, I heard somebody in the unit I was locked in say, ‘If you continue doing what you’ve always done, you will continue to get what you’ve always got,’” said Diaz. “I’m by myself inside this cell, I didn’t hear a voice, I didn’t see a light … But I broke down, and got on my knees and I started crying.”
While the gala was a celebration of the name change and of those who have made the hard journey through the recovery process, it also served as a fundraiser. Riverbend spokesperson Matthew Myers said Friday the event had raised more than $30,000, which will be used to support the Free Care Fund.
The Free Care Fund is used by the organization to provide free substance use treatment to clients with low or no income. In the organization’s fiscal 2024, more than $800,000 in free care was provided to clients in Lowell House programs.
It is through that fund and those donations, Reinke said to close the event, that will help lead New England to being “the most recovery-friendly, recovery-supportive community that anybody wants to visit.”
The planned keynote speaker of the evening was the Rev. Gregory “Father G” Boyle, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program in the world. Reinke announced at the beginning of the program that Boyle had come down with COVID, and was unable to attend.
For more information about Riverbend, visit riverbendmv.org.