It’s been a super busy month and things are only getting busier by the minute it seems. I knew going into September that I was going to have my hands full with travel and speaking. I only have 3 days off this month and honestly I wouldn’t trade it in for the world. I’m very grateful I get to do this!
Tracy, a wonderful lady at Speakers of Change lined up this event for me and it turns out it was in a much needed area of Virginia. Smyth County specifically is having some struggles and from what I understand is that there was a major loss of industry over the years in the area and it’s left people without work. The CEO of a large health care provider in Virginia stated that something like 44% of individuals are unemployable for various reasons. Apparently unemployable doesn’t even show up on the unemployment rate for our country or the county. These are just individuals who are not fit to hold jobs. When these types of things happen substance use tends to rise. People become disconnected and filled with hopelessness, community and connectedness is really a big deal and as communities we have to come together to help those are not able support themselves.
Mount Rogers hosted the event and it was the first of its kind, I was honored to be the first speaker they selected. It was nice to see the turnout they had for their first event and everyone so involved during questions and answers. Mount Rogers is working very hard at providing services to their community. They were specifically looking to raise funds to help support giving rides to individuals who had no means of transportation to their healthcare services. This is so important because of what I mentioned above about people feeling connected to their community and its members. I really commend them in their genuine efforts to help ease the substance use issues the community members are facing. Thank you Mount Rogers for hosting me in your community!
Mount Rogers info can be found here http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/mount-rogers/