Our Story: How Love and Respect Community Was Started
It all started with hope and a dream in December of 2016. Lexie Wilkins a person in long-term recovery (since January 5, 2005), formerly incarcerated, justice-involved individual had a vision for creating a recovery community center, a center that was staffed and managed by people like him and who looked like him, who had lived experience with substance use and/or mental health challenges.
The Vision Begins to Form
Lexie knew that authentic connection and peer support services was the foundation on which this vision needed to rest. While the vision was there more experience was needed. Lexie became an NC Certified Peer Support Specialist in 2012 allowing him to use his life experiences to begin supporting others. He was hired by Sunrise Community, Asheville, NC, as the first outreach peer support for Sunrise (which was the first peer-run recovery community center in Western North Carolina). While he was there, he learned and contributed to the raising up of this new center, all the while learning of how eventually he would be able to open a recovery community center of his own.
After leaving Sunrise, he continued educating himself on all things “recovery” gaining certifications in WRAP, as a facilitator, Recovery Coach Training, MRT, among others. Additionally, Lexie earned credentialing as a QP, and a CDAC along the way.
Love and Respect Community is Born
Having 17 years of field experience and education under his belt, it was in February 2017 that he received 501 ( c )3 nonprofit status for Love and Respect Community for Recovery and Wellness, Inc. Working closely with a number of community partners (United Way of Rutherford County Dogwood Health Trust and Sunrise Community primarily), in January of 2022 Love and Respect was awarded its first two grants enabling it to open a physical location in Hendersonville, NC and to hire Peer Support Specialists and administrative staff of 5 people!
Love and Respect is the first Peer-run Recovery Community Center in Henderson County, NC and its doors are open. We’re serving people in a dignified, loving, and respectful way, humanizing and normalizing the healthcare epidemic that is ‘substance use and mental health challenges.
As was the vision from the start, Love and Respect now supports people by using authentic Peer Support services. We are here for you. We are you.