Larry Crosby Makes Thrifty Ice Cream A Delicious Donor!

This morning Sylvia and I visited Lawrence M. Crosby (Larry), the General Manager of Thrifty Ice Cream located in El Monte, CA. The purpose of the visit was to take this picture of Larry and to show him a picture of the tile we have mounted on the donor wall expressing our gratitude to him and to everyone at Thrifty Ice Cream (you buy it at Rite Aid now) for their generosity. Don't you all agree that this is still the best ice cream you can eat?

Well, we have been getting ice cream from Thrifty's since I've worked in this department, going back thirteen years, so I asked Larry how long its really been. He doesn't know. It's just been a long, long time. How lucky are we? As many of you know, we rely on donations from our friends and neighbors in the Southern California Community to help us give the best possible treatment to everyone of our clients. And perks like ice cream, not considered a necessity, certainly enhance a client's treatment experience by (of course) increasing the enjoyment quotient of our mealtimes. Everyone loves ice cream - chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cookies 'n cream, pistachio, chocolate mint...cold...melty...I think I've said more than I need to about how much ice cream means to all of us!

Anyway, Larry Crosby, we learned today, is a genuinely nice man. He is, like me, old school down to earth California born and bred. He is a "Valley Boy" from the San Fernando Valley, who started working at Thrifty's while he was still in school. It was after he graduated from Brigham Young University that he actually decided to make Thrifty's a career, so he is truly a man who went from scooping ice cream cones to being the General Manager of the company. He says it's been 36 years, possibly a little more. An American story. What I don't get is how he can be the GM of an ice cream company and be so slender. Doesn't compute.

There are some other nice people at Thrifty's that we have worked with over the years; Mercedes, Kathleen, Maria - all of them eager to help, all of them kind. We want to acknowledge them. We are grateful to our angels.

It takes so much help to do what we want to do here and we are very fortunate. It seems that when we put our needs "out there" we get the help we are looking for.

This month we were awarded two grants: The Patron Saints Foundation has given us a grant to purchase new tankless water heaters in several of our buildings and The Pasadena Community Foundation has given us a grant for a new stairway from the parking lot to the meeting room. Thank you everyone.

About Me

OK, you've been getting these blog announcements from me for several weeks now, and most of you know me, some of you might not, but you are on my e-mail list because we have a relationshop. I am the Director of Development of Impact Drug & Alcohol Treatment Center and my main concern is letting people know what a wonderful job we do at treating men & women for substance abuse problems, hopefully convincing those who need help to consider us, and equally, to convince those who are able, to help us with donations.

I have finally "filled in the blanks" on my profile - there were 36 hits and I hadn't entered any information on it. But I just thought I'd give you this little tidbit here. I'm not your typical Development Director. My "speckled past" is a little out of the ordinary of the good people that I come into contact with when I go out into the world of nonprofit fundraising.

I am not the typical Master's Degree'd cookie cutter professional of proven integrity. I am sure that there are few DD who were tracked by Interpol or arrested by the DEA with 12 pounds of heroin from Thailand, but this is my history.

The other side of this coin is that I have and enormous amount of gratitude, a deep knowledge of the history of Impact, excellent work experience in the corporate arena and some writing talent. So it works for us.

Bob Barrett - 40 Years of Service to Impact

In 1969 treatment centers that focused on substance abuse did not exist except in the context of hospitalization or hard-core centers that bordered on the abusive such as Synanon in Santa Monica.

Our Founding Director, Robert (Bob) Barrett, (along with co-founder Bill Beck)envisioned residential treatment that focused on introducing the addict to the Twelve Step Programs and behaviour modification that was based on "one addict helping another." To date, his vision has brought the message of hope and recovery to an estimated 30,000 men and women.

I've known Bob since 1973. At that time he was of course serving on the Board of Directors of Impact, was employed by the studios, and leased a house in Los Angeles on Crenshaw Blvd. that housed the phone lines - he also rented the bedrooms to newcomers, I lived in one of them. If my old memory serves me we called it the Crenshaw House. There was a meeting there on Friday nights.

Well, skip ahead forty years. Bob still sits on the Board, attends the monthly Credentialing Meeting, is a Counselor at Large at Impact, and 30,000 men and women have been treated here at Impact Drug & Alcohol Treatment Center, thank you Bob Barrett.

Seeds of Recovery - The Impact Sustainable Garden

We're very excited about a new project that's happening here at the Fair Oaks Ave facility right now. It's called the Seeds of Recovery Sustainable Garden. And it's
a beautiful and new idea that's just perfect for us.

Becky Prelitz, Impact's nutritionist, approached Jim Stillwell, Impact's Executive Director with the idea earlier this year and suggested that Impact begin to use the fruit of the grapefruit and orange trees on the property and, by the way, why not turn the lawn which are costly and consume far too much water, into a sustainable garden.

Becky introduced us to John Tikotsky a Landscape Architect who designed our garden for Impact and who in turn brought in a cadre of gardening professionals, including Master Gardener Ned Boyer; some came from CalTech, some from the Arboretum, some from the Pasadena school system, who helped plan, build, and plant a rotating garden.

This very exciting addition to Impact's broad spectrum of programs will give clients, men and women who have just come from the streets, from some of life's most harrowing situations, a chance to "land" in a place of serenity. It will give them what very few have ever experienced in their lives, a one on one with the land, and a chance to watch life happen from a seed to a nuturing vegetable.

Although it will not be enough to feed 135 men and women three meals a day 365 days a year, the benefits of this project are clear to everyone. As always, when Impact initiates a program, it is as a pioneer, with tremendous hope for the growth of its clients, and success will be measured not in carrots or cucumbers but in human lives that find, for the first time, meaning and belonging and even joy.

And oh, for those of you who have been through Impact as clients - we can eat the fruit from the grapefruit and orange trees now! Jim did some research to find out why that rule happened and if we could change it. he called the Health Department and they said that as far back as they could remember, the ban on eating the fruit came from the days when the County spray for fruit flies and there was malathione on the fruit trees. But that's not happening anymore and we don't use chemicals here at Impact. So come on over and pick up a piece of fruit.

Write to me. Arlene