CLANCY — Since opening in 2020, Hope Center Ministries in Clancy has had over sixty-five percent of its graduates remain sober and employed.
Hope Center Ministries is an addiction recovery program that uses a vocational training phase to help women get back into the workforce and provides daily structure.
Participants talk about how the program has helped:
"I feel like I have a new start, a new family, and I just feel more me than I have ever felt me before," said Shelley Koelzer.
Shelley is one of the 25 people currently in the year-long program.
She has been in the program for almost seven months and works as the house chef and an artist.
"It has changed my life," she noted.
Angel Tail is also in the program and is in her fourth month, and manages much of the logistics.
"The way it has changed my life is it has helped me change my thinking and my thoughts," said Tail.
Hope Center Ministries is a worldwide faith-based recovery program that has 51 locations in the United States and helps those battling alcohol and drug addiction through three phases.
Carolyn Belling, the regional director, says, "We are taking them through a series of life skills, team building activities, leadership classes, take them to church, get them involved in the community, things that are vital to long-term success."
Residents range from 18 to 65 years old and are able to apply what they learn at the center to a job out in the community through vocational training partnerships with local businesses.
"All different walks of life, all different skills, all different backgrounds, and so we want to place them somewhere that is going to utilize their skills and strengths as best as possible," Belling says.
Currently, the Clancy location and men's center outside of Butte are the only locations in Montana, but soon a center will be underway in Ronan.
