ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 24, 1996 TAG: 9612240089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
On Christmas Day while most families pull in together, Marianne Todd and other workers at the On Our Own center in Roanoke will try to make the day special for people estranged from relatives.
"If anybody has nowhere to go, we're here for them," said Todd, project director.
On Our Own of Roanoke Valley Inc. takes its name from a national movement that encourages people who have had a mental illness or mental health problem to provide a peer support system for others who likewise suffer.
The center is open 2-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday to anyone who suffers from mental illness, retardation or substance abuse, although substance abusers can come only if they are clean of drugs or alcohol.
The staff members at the downtown Roanoke center are themselves consumers of mental health services, so they understand chronic mental illness and the need to reach out to other people, Todd said.
They also understand that their budget is in the red about $1,100. They need help from churches, civic groups and individuals, and are willing to go public to get it.
"We're getting the word out that we're poor," she said.
A fund-raising effort several months ago was disappointing. The staff sent 30 letters to local churches and never got one word back, Todd said.
The center needs money to provide coffee, tea and sandwiches to the guests, said Opal Bland, bookkeeper.
The Roanoke center, which is on Day Avenue Southwest, has a three-year operating grant of $23,000 a year from the Virginia Department of Rehabilitation. Rent at $424 a month and a monthly payroll of $1,272 for a part-time staff of four, plus occasional fill-in staff, eat up more than $20,000 of the grant.
Workers supplement the center's income by selling coffee and tea to the people who use the facility. They'd like to be able to provide the beverages and light snacks free.
The center averages about 10 people a day, and many don't have enough money to pay the 25 cents for coffee or tea, Bland said. She also believes that if the center could provide some food, it would attract more visitors.
People come to the center to socialize and to feel comfortable, said a middle-aged woman who is a regular visitor. The woman said she had her first nervous breakdown at age 16 and moved here from New York state to be with her elderly father.
A 29-year-old man visiting the center on the same afternoon said he came there because no one in his family could understand the agoraphobia he battles.
Agoraphobics fear being in open or public places.
"Before I started coming here, I wouldn't go in a convenience store by myself," the man said.
Soon he was able to venture out to hockey games and eventually went to work part time, he said.
He did not want his name revealed in the newspaper, though, for fear that that it would jeopardize his job.
The people who come to the center "have lost everything," Bland said.
Even treatment is harder to get, she said.
Medicare has become more restrictive about the number of doctors' visits it allows for mental health patients, it doesn't pay for medicine, and it provides psychotherapy in emergency cases only, Bland said.
Bland has lived in Roanoke and been an advocate for mental health patients since 1983 when she was released from Southwestern State Hospital in Marion.
Mental health clients are a subculture of people who, because they have so many battles to fight, get to know each other, said Phil Young, a former staff member who is now on the board. Young suffered a head injury as a child.
Even though the center already needs money, it would like to expand what it already does for its regulars.
The center polled its visitors about what activities they would like at the facility; responses included requests for classes on medication management, nutrition, etiquette, money management and smoking cessation. Visitors also wanted to learn pottery, leathercraft, yoga, square dancing and fabric painting.
Successful grant writing is the answer to a center's growth, said Shela Silverman, who is on the staff of On Our Own of Charlottesville.
The Charlottesville facility is in its seventh year. It was the pioneer center in Virginia, and its staff helped the Roanoke group start up.
On Our Own of Charlottesville has an annual budget of $100,000 and sees about 50 visitors a day, Silverman said. It recently purchased a building with a $100,000 grant from United Parcel Service. It gets federal funding and Community Development Block Grant funding to work with the homeless.
The Roanoke center also will seek Community Development Block Grant money, said Dennis Simpson, treasurer. The group has to focus on applying for new grants because its current operating grant expires in September 1997.
The group recently named a new board that includes Nancy Canova, president; Greg Hancock, vice president; Simpson, treasurer; and Fred Bolden, Stanley Todd and Phil Young, board members.
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: FILE 1996 From left, Phil Young, board member; Opalby CNBBland, bookkeeper; Marianne Todd, project director; and Leigh
Kayalof, staff member, are shown in a photograph taken this fall at
On Our Own of Roanoke Valley.