Group raises funds for recovery-friendly New Year’s Eve party

Individuals from a local recovery group are raising funds to help individuals ring in the new year safely.

The event, called “Celebrate SMART Sober New Year’s Eve”, will take place at the gym of St. Peter’s Lutheran in downtown Columbus from 7 p.m. on Dec. 31 to 12:15 a.m. on Jan. 1. According to organizers, the event is free and family-friendly. It will include food, music, games, prizes and community resources.

To help fund the event, co-organizer Alison Grimes has launched a campaign on angelink.com to raise $2,000.

“Those in early recovery are often trying to build their lives back after homelessness or incarceration,” she wrote in the campaign description. “They don’t have a lot of money to spend on celebrating so we offer the food, entertainment and door prizes all free of charge. In order to do this, we rely on the generosity of our community partners and anyone wanting to support our efforts by donating to our event.”

This is the second annual Celebrate SMART New Year’s Eve party. Grimes and Jessica Comstock organized last year’s event and have created a planning committee to help make this year’s event even bigger. The two friends attend Self-Management and Recovery Training (SMART) meetings at St. Peter’s, with Grimes serving as one of the facilitators. They also attend some Celebrate Recovery meetings, hence the decision to name the party “Celebrate SMART.”

“We wanted a place where we could all get together and celebrate the new year, because it is a day that a lot of people who are early in recovery struggle with,” Grimes said. “Because the holiday, it’s centered around drinking and partying. … But we still want to be social and we still want to celebrate things. So it was our plan to have a place where everyone could bring their children, because a lot of them are being reunited with their families.”

The event is not only for recovering individuals, but also friends, family members and anyone who supports recovery and wants to attend a sober event on New Year’s.

Grimes said that St. Peter’s provides the event venue free of charge, and there are some sponsors that helped last year and have pledged to do so again. Organizers are also hoping to have door prizes donated and raise enough funds for food, beverages, and a DJ or live band.

The desire to hold a bigger event this year led organizers to create a more official fundraising campaign.

“Last year we played some music, we brought board games, we had food and just fellowship,” said Grimes. “But this year we want to make it a little more entertaining. We’d like to have more live music. We’ve talked about having maybe a euchre tournament and some games for the kids, watch the ball drop and step up our game on the food.”

She added that they also plan to have community partners and harm reduction resources at the event. Representatives from sober living communities, the Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress Hub and Centerstone have been asked to participate.