By Chi Ab Vang
For the CV Post
The collective sound of voices grows louder as people line up for lunch at Positive Avenues in downtown Eau Claire. The smell of fresh chicken alfredo and hot rolls drifts through the air as a volunteer begins to dish food onto plates.
On this recent day, a petite woman sits at a table near the lunch line and shouts to a friend who is walking through the entrance to this daytime drop-in center, operated by Lutheran Social Services, that serves as a stigma-free place where people enduring mental illness or homelessness can receive a variety of services.
“Hi! How are you doing?” Emily Place calls out as she and her friend hug and begin talking. Soon their voices are drowned out as chatter from the lunch line grows louder.
“I used to be really shy,” Place says with a smile on her face.
Susan Howe, Positive Avenues program supervisor, says it’s hard to believe that about Place, a woman whose voice resonates throughout a roomful of people.
“Little by little, she started making friends and she started volunteering,” Howe says. “She just kind of blossomed.”
Place started visiting Positive Avenues, located in the lower level of the old Holsum Bakery at 320 Putman St., 15 years ago, at the invitation of a friend from her adult foster home. Place had been placed in the foster home after being diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis, and not long after she began feeling depressed due to her isolation.
An escape from isolation
Positive Avenues helped her socialize when she felt alone, Place says, adding that she still visits the center even when she isn’t feeling lonely.
“I like coming here and I’ve got a lot of friends up here,” Place says. “I meet new people all the time. A lot of people come and go since I’ve been here.”
Positive Avenues’ large main room is filled with tables and chairs at which members eat lunch, socialize and play board games. The back wall is lined with lockers in which members store their personal possessions. There’s also a kitchen in which meals are prepared on days when The Community Table is not serving lunch.
A TV lounge and pool table provide entertainment options for members. In another area, three computers are available for members to use in researching, job hunting and seeking housing, tasks for which help is available to them.
In a new addition to the facility, there’s more space for activities such as card playing, craft making and painting. On the back wall of this room, posters created by nursing students at Chippewa Valley Technical College provide information about metabolic syndrome and sexual health.
Anneke Brainerd, a state-certified peer specialist at Positive Avenues, says the student volunteers made the posters informational and interesting. “They outdid themselves this particular time, and people were willing to check it out,” she says.
When Place first came to Positive Avenues, her chronic pancreatitis had her feeling hopeless, as if she had no future.
“I felt like giving up,” she says. “I felt like, ‘I’m going to die from this and I’m not going to get any better.’ I felt discouraged.”
But Place found that she enjoyed and benefited by visiting Positive Avenues because there she was surrounded by people she could relate to.
The relationship she has developed with Howe also helped improve her mental and physical well-being, Place says.
“Sue was always saying, ‘No, you’ll get better. You’ll get better,’ ” Place says. “People built my self-esteem back up, and I eventually got better. I’ve been a lot better.”
As stated on its website, the goal of Positive Avenues “is to empower its members to take charge of their recovery, provide a safe place for members to develop social skills and become active members of the Eau Claire community as well as to facilitate access to community resources which support members in their recovery journey. There is a part-time certified Peer Specialist, who uses lived experience in recovery from mental illness to offer hope and to assist others in living full, recovery-focused lives within the community.”
Place, like many others who have been served by Positive Avenues, says she enjoys the encouraging culture of the drop-in center.
“It’s a safe place to come where you’re accepted, where you can be yourself,” Howe says. “It’s a place to land and a place to grow.”
Over the years, attendance at Positive Avenues has gradually increased. Howe says that early on the center had many members, but daily attendance numbers were low.
“We would sometimes see 12 to 13 people a day, 20 at the most. And now we see between 50 and 60 and 70 people a day,” she says. “We generally have a good crowd of 30 or 40 at a time.”
In addition to providing social services to its members, Positive Avenues provides meals and informational health seminars, Howe says.
Volunteers play vital role
Positive Avenues collaborates in its work with volunteers from Chippewa Valley Technical College, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and UW-Stout.
“There are various professors who will bring their classes down for days of volunteering, just to make their classes more aware of the resources that are out there,” Howe says.
Brainerd, the certified peer specialist, works one-on-one with Positive Avenues members and volunteers. She says many times first-time visitors and volunteers don’t understand how difficult socializing can be for Positive Avenue members.
“Everything is new, it’s overwhelming,” Brainerd says. “You don’t know anyone, you’re scared and you don’t think you’ll get through it. That’s the feeling that many of the people here feel.”
While Positive Avenues volunteers help with the important tasks of cleaning, teaching crafts, and preparing and serving meals, Howe says their most vital task is merely socializing with the members.
“Just coming down and visiting with them makes them feel like they are a part of society,” she says.
Even though Positive Avenues has been successful in growing its membership and member participation, Howe says their have been times when a lack of finances has had the drop-in center on the verge of closing its doors permanently. But each time they have been rescued by grant funding or increased support provided by the Eau Claire County Board.
Howe says that despite the center’s ups and downs, she loves seeing the many people who benefit from the services provided at Positive Avenues – even if those people need to continue coming to the center.
“To me it means something’s working,” Howe says. “I’ve seen people come in, stay a while and get back on their feet.
“It’s nice to see progress, but I also accept people,” she adds. “Sometimes this is where they’re going to stay. I’m OK with that, because it’s their choice.”
Emily Place is just one of those people; for her Positive Avenues is a home away from home.
“It’s more like a family,” she says. “Whenever someone needs something, this is the first place we turn to.”
(With the publishing of this story, the CVPost bids a fond farewell to Chi Ab Vang, one of our first community journalists. Thanks for your work, Chi Ab, and best of luck at your new job in Nashville!)