An Appeal From Our Leadership
Posted: December 7, 2020
We don’t have to tell you that 2020 has been a strange and challenging year in so many ways. A year none of us will forget, for sure.
Will you help us reach our mission to improve the mental, physical, and spiritual health of veterans, children, adults, and families?
For 46 years, Samaritan Center has been providing holistic mental health support to our community. Our staff consists of licensed counselors and social workers, acupuncturists, and certified peers. They work to fulfill our mission: To heal hearts, provide hope, and enhance lives.We need your help now!
We treat all ages and we treat whole families. Our largest program, Hope for Heroes, serves veterans, service members, and their families. We’re happy to let you know that in 2020, we expanded our Hope for Heroes program to include First Responders. We know that they, too, are heroes.There is really no other place in Central Texas for a whole family to receive affordable treatment.
Samaritan Center takes a holistic approach to treatment. We offer evidence-based clinical counseling. We take care of the physical symptoms of stress through acupuncture and nutrition. Attention to a person’s individual spirituality is also essential to healing. It can help them to move past trauma, and toward leading a happy and fulfilling life. Our certified peers, are veterans themselves. They provide a unique form of support for other veterans.We rely on donations from the community. These allow us to offer a sliding scale and free services to our most vulnerable neighbors. Donations and fundraising events help provide free and affordable services.
We simply can’t do this without you. Your support will make a real, lasting impact in the lives of those who are still in need.
In mid-March, we had to make the difficult decision to stop seeing clients in person. We moved everything to a virtual telehealth platform. Our staff is working from their homes. We can’t tell you how proud we are of our staff for the swift way that they accomplished this. It was nothing short of a miracle. As you might guess and have heard, we are in the midst of a mental health crisis. There are more people than ever struggling with anxiety, depression, grief, and trauma. We are seeing an increase in substance abuse, suicide, and domestic violence. People have lost their jobs, they’ve lost their health insurance, and they’ve lost loved ones.Our work has never been more important, and raising funds has never been more essential.
At Samaritan Center, we are seeing more and more families struggling who can’t afford the cost of service. Our funds for subsidizing these services are depleting. We take most health insurance. But our insurance revenues are declining, with more clients losing their insurance. Financial support from our generous community has never been so important. To be honest, this is a challenging time for us, and 2021 is going to be difficult.Families are struggling with job loss and have lost their insurance during COVID19. They can't access the high-quality services that we provide. Can you help them?
Every little bit helps to provide hope and healing. $1000 will pay for an individual to receive two months of services. $500 will pay for a child to receive a month of trauma-informed play therapy. $125 will pay for a grieving adult to receive a spiritually-integrated counseling session. All donations, no matter the size, subsidize the cost of care.Please donate now to help us offer a sliding scale for the entire community.
We want to thank you for your continued support of the work we do to improve the lives of Central Texans. With gratitude,
Cindy Long, CEO Eric Wittek, President, Board of Trustees