A Residential Shelter for Adolescent Drug Addicts

Nexus Recovery Center continues to be a successful challenge for Dance To Live.  It fulfills our mission statement.

"Dance to Live!  provides grants for expressive movement and dance therapy in memory of Michelle Parma.  Our mission is to raise funds to support community programs that provide dance therapy as a means of expression, connection, co-operation, an outlet for emotion and a source of joy.  Dance to Live uses dance therapy to connect beauty with one’s self."  The last sentence so very well expresses what we accomplish at Nexus Recovery Center.

The adolescent girls we work with have already experienced poverty, dead-end education, hopelessness, drug addiction - and ever more frequently motherhood.  The children are housed at the residential shelter with their mothers and we have had an explosion of young children in our classes.  Since most of these children are developmentally delayed (because of their home environment) we work with the school to tailor classes around what they are currently being taught.  At this point, we are dividing our children's classes into two groups - the very young children and then the elementary age children.  Their mothers all attend one adolescent movement class where lesson plans are developed to address their most pressing needs.

It's September now, and before we know it the holidays will be here.  Observing a class at Nexus last Thanksgiving was a surprising lesson in gratitude.  We sat in a circle after the class and each of us said what we were grateful for.  So many adolescents expressed gratitude for support from specific family members.  So many knew they were loved and had not been abandoned.  There was so much hope and raw love in the room.  This is why we have made Nexus Recovery Center one of our projects.  We sincerely appreciate your support through donations which allow this work to continue.

Sincerely,

Susan Parma - Susan.Parma@DanceToLive.org