Recovery Cafe offers healing

Virginia Dutkin of Niwot and Dale Sherrod of Longmont are both modest – and kind. Highly successful professionals in their previous lives in high finance and medicine, respectively, they spoke recently in a church basement in Longmont about an upcoming concert to benefit the Recovery Cafe.

The organization, which launched just four years ago in Seattle, now has 49 sites in the U.S. and Canada, including the one in Longmont in the basement of the Central Longmont Presbyterian Church, at 402 Kimbark Street across from the public library. Its mission is to serve as "a community of refuge and healing for people in recovery."

On Sunday Nov. 12 at 3 p.m, Sherrod, a retired doctor and talented pianist along with three other local musicians, will conduct a concert in the Presbyterian Church. Sponsored by Flatirons Bank and High Plains Bank, the concert will be followed by a reception downstairs in the Recovery Cafe. For free tickets email: virginia@recoverycafelongmont.org.

"We stand in the gap between crisis and stability" for people recovering from addiction, trauma, mental health challenges and homelessness," Dutkin said. "We're not a drop-in center. We're a community of refuge and healing."

Now development director for the Recovery Cafe, Dutkin started her career at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City and for eight years, she lived in Hong Kong where she was Investment Communications Manager for Fidelity Investments.

After she and her husband Todd Dutkin moved to Niwot in 2001, she worked in a family-owned business while raising three children who all went through the Niwot school system. She wanted to learn more about nonprofits and enrolled at CU Denver where she earned a Masters in Public Administration with a concentration in nonprofit management. She has also served on the Board of Directors for Intercambio and Longmont Community Foundation.

Dutkin said membership at the Recovery Cafe is free but there are three requirements for joining: sobriety for 24 hours; willingness to help with the up-keep of the cafe; and taking part in "recovery circles" where members and volunteers such as Sherrod sit together and share their stories.

"We believe in accountability," she added.

Sherrod, a resident of Longmont since 1965 and an OB-GYN physician for 40 years before retiring in 2006, first heard about the Recovery Cafe during a talk hosted last year by the Longmont Rotary Club, where he has been a member for 12 years, and where he has been recognized as a member who "exemplifies the Rotary tenets of compassion and service above self." After hearing the talk at Rotary, Sherrod said, "I was very, very impressed and I wanted to learn more. I asked if I could become a volunteer."

Volunteers at the Recovery Cafe are known as "Ambassadors of Hospitality." They can sign up on-line. "I came in," said the highly accomplished physician and musician, "and introduced myself in the circle. I'm Dale. It's a great lesson in just listening – in learning to be."

Every Thursday, 12 to 14 "members" watch a Ted Talk on a relevant subject. "We discuss it together," he said. "It's a very good sharing.".

The Recovery Cafe is open five days a week for meals and circles of sharing – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday from 12-3 p.m. and Friday from 4-7 p.m. The Cafe cooks and volunteers serve the free meals, and as Sherrod, who serves as an Ambassador of Hospitality, said, "a lot happens for 15 people sharing a meal."

Sherrod, an accomplished pianist who started piano lessons at age six, has hosted benefit concerts almost every year since 1997, interrupted only by the COVID pandemic. All of his concerts are free, with voluntary donations going to different charities.

The concert Nov. 12 to benefit Recovery Cafe is his first public concert since 2019. He has been quoted as saying that piano performance "is a way to spread joy and to serve humanity by helping to provide financial support to good organizations."

With a current budget of $500,000 (50% provided by grants and 50% by individual donations), the Recovery Cafe, which is experiencing increased participation post-Covid, is working to raise money for "a bigger location with a commercial kitchen," Dutkin said.

Five years ago, Dutkin started Left Hand Giving Circle, a group of local women in the Niwot area who pool their resources to provide grants to local nonprofits and who participate in group volunteer projects. They also enjoy social activities such as book groups, monthly happy hours and museum outings. In just five years, the Left Hand Giving Circle has donated more than $100,000 to local nonprofits and has contributed more than 1,000 volunteer hours to the community.

Both Sherrod and Dutkin are true believers in the Recovery Cafe's transformative model where members set personal goals and have reported that the Cafe supported them in finding increased hope, feeling connected and useful, experiencing support and gaining skills, preventing relapse, and discovering an increased desire for recovery.