Additional Words of Support from Our Friends!
 

Our community's support for the Vashon Thunderbird Treatment Center is a small step towards addressing social inequities. Many people who use substances have experienced significant social disparities that increased their risk of being affected by addiction. Additionally, drug dependency is a medical disorder based on known biological processes. Just as we would support services for people with diabetes or high blood pressure, so should we support services for those impacted by the disease of addiction. Stigmatizing substance use disorders interferes with the healing of those affected and limits the allocation of resources for treatment services. Substance use is a reality in our society and we can't justify insulating our privileged community from addressing this problem and contributing to solutions. In my nearly 30 years of working in Public Health in King County, I have cared for countless patients who have benefited from Seattle Indian Health Board services (for general medical care and treatment services). When many addiction treatment centers closed down, the Thunderbird Treatment Center's doors remained open. I know the Seattle Indian Health Board services to be accessible, well-organized, high-quality, and greatly needed.

Vashon is such an ideal place for folks to recover. I am in full support of the SIHB and the new Thunderbird Treatment Center.

I’m looking forward to hearing about opportunities to show support for the treatment center through this group!

I am a long-time Islander who raised my old kiddo here, a former Vashon Senior Center employee, an enthusiastic volunteer and former board member of several non-profits on the island, and lastly, an adoptee who grew up in a very dysfunctional family of addicts/alcoholics. So I'm "uniquely" qualified to love and hope the best for them (12-step joke). Bottom line? This facility is needed, for Vashon and for the greater Seattle area. So, WELCOME to the island, Thunderbird Treatment Center! We're glad you're here!

The Thunderbird Treatment Center and the healing services that it offers exemplify the values that I see expressed so often on our island and gives us an opportunity to live them. Supporting Thunderbird is a chance to get one step closer to the idea of Beloved Community.

I am so pleased and proud to have you be a part of our community. As a mental health practitioner, I welcome your services. We can be a-stubborn-to-accept-change island, but folks will come around. Welcome!

Thank you for all of the hard work you put in so those of us who support the Seattle Indian Health Board and the Thunderbird Treatment Center have a voice!

I am excited that Seattle Indian Health Board will open an addiction rehabilitation center in my hometown using Traditional Indigenous knowledge! How cool is that?!

Thunderbird will be an asset to our Island Community—something we have an opportunity to welcome and support, for the healing of ourselves and all our relations.

I am so glad to have this resource on our island, where people—for the most part—are caring, supportive, and demonstrative.

I am a strong believer of any recovery center that will help save the lives of many affected by the deadly illness of addiction.

I welcome with open arms and heart Thunderbird's arrival to Vashon. Their alternative Indigenous-based approach to healing is a great match for our community. With so much to learn, so many ways to grow, and such a desperate need to address the despair and suffering caused by our community's extensive and often hidden substance abuse problems - and the systems that enable it. - Vashon is the true beneficiary of Thunderbird's arrival. Vashon aspires to be and should be a place of healing. The great skills and resources that Thunderbird will bring offer us the chance to be a better, more resilient and connected community. I embrace these new neighbors with deepest gratitude and respect

Welcome to Vashon. You are offering much needed services in a culturally important way.  We can all benefit from your presence.  

I will be proud to see Vashon host Thunderbird and help them meet such an important need in our region.

Thunderbird Treatment Center will not only save lives but also restore hope and dignity to those affected by addiction. It is a vital step toward building a healthier, safer, and more resilient community.

I send my heartfelt support for SIHB's Thunderbird Treatment Center. I grew up on Vashon and returned to the island as an adult when I was in a deeply broken place recovering from trauma. I attribute my healing largely to being in the island's gentle landscape and connecting with nature. I believe Vashon is an ideal place for those seeking healing from addiction. I believe Thunderbird Treatment Center, with its holistic approach to healing, will enrich our island community and serve an important need--where healing happens, everyone benefits.

I wholeheartedly support this significant and important treatment center, and I'm proud To be part of a community that supports it.

The treatment center is right down the road from my house and I have been looking forward to its opening. All that I have heard about the Thunderbird organization has been positive. It sounds like it will be a compassionate environment to successfully rehabilitate from addiction. If the chance opens to volunteer massage or yoga classes I will gladly offer them!

Thunderbird Treatment Center will be a welcome addition to our Island. It will provide an in-house treatment center in a tranquil, isolated setting for Islanders and others who suffer from alcohol and drug addiction. Such a setting provides a fitting backdrop from busy, noisy urban and suburban areas where the lure of alcohol and drugs is prevalent.  The Seattle Indian Health Board has saved many lives and helped cure many addicts in Seattle. They will continue to do so on our Island not only for Islanders, those from Seattle and its neighborhoods but for indigenous people from the entire Pacific Northwest. I applaud their work.

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Thunderbird Treatment Center will be a great use of the VCC building and a positive force in our community.

The Thunderbird Treatment Center will provide vital services informed by indigenous perspectives long absent from mainstream treatments.

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I am impressed with the tremendous effort you are putting forth to be a good neighbor on the island and I am looking forward to all the ways our community will be enriched by and learn from the healing approaches you are taking in your work. My hope is that our community can return this goodwill and enrichment and that it will flow both ways with equal strength as this process of getting to know one another matures.

I can’t think of a better way for our community to show and give support to the indigenous than to provide a place where they and others can recover from the ravages of our culture.

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To oppose an addiction treatment center on the grounds it will spread addiction is like opposing a hospital on the grounds it will cause broken legs—the problem is here, how can we benefit from ignoring it? The country we live in has inflicted profound harm on and theft from its indigenous people, causing disproportionate impacts on many health outcomes, substance use included. How can we begin to heal these great wounds? Will we choose care and respect for those in crisis, hearing and centering their voices, or will we choose fear? Everyone in this country has seen what a politics of fear does, how it breaks bonds and spirals intensifying ever downward, solving nothing, helping no one. Will we break the cycle? Can we work to repair our relations? I hope and believe that we can—that we stand to gain much more than we could ever stand to lose by welcoming Thunderbird to this magical island, that we will make a decision we can be proud of.