My name is Mandy Suthers and I am the CEO/Founder of DarJune Recovery Community Center & Services. I will be leaving my home in Green Bay, Wisconsin on February 27th, 2017 to attempt a thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail. The purpose of me doing this hike is to raise funds for DarJune so we can obtain housing for individuals seeking recovery from substance abuse issues within Brown County and throughout all of Wisconsin. 

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Being a person in long-term recovery with 7 1/2 years sober myself, I know just how difficult it can be trying to make it through just a single day. Every day feels like a mountain you have to climb and you feel like you won't ever make it over the next hill. I soon realized that I wanted to help other people get over those mountains and help them see the light at the end of a dark tunnel they thought they could never come out of. So, in August of 2014, DarJune Recovery Community Center & Services was founded and we opened our doors to everyone who needed help with any and all addictions and mental health challenges.

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When someone is newly getting sober, this is what it feels like from day one when they start walking. A lot of the time, they don't walk into the arms of recovery right away because they struggled to find their way in the past. So, the Appalachian Trail is a lot like getting sober. I will be doing this walk and putting myself back to what it felt like mentally at day #1 of my sobriety to create awareness and education for everyone out there so others can understand what its like when you get sober. The whole time while I am attempting to walk from Georgia to Maine, I will be going through mental challenges, I will go through times when I want to go home, times when I want to give up, times when I do not want to do this trail any longer and I want to just quit because it would be easier. I will have times of seeing amazing beauty and walking in clouds only to come back down again another rocky hard path. The whole point I believe is to go through those ups and downs to yet climb to another beautiful place in the clouds (just like recovery). Every bit of this trail is exactly like the first 6 months of getting sober and learning to obtain sobriety.

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I am hoping that throughout this expedition and all the youtube videos, that we will be able to create global awareness of how extremely important it is to fund housing for addiction. Safe housing creates a sense of community and family instead of not having a place to go and feeling like you are all alone and no one understands.

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