One year ago, CRAM, which stands for Christ Rescues All Mankind, was formed to help bring the youth to the Hot Dog Festival. From all appearances from the Hot Dog Festival on Saturday, it looks like mission accomplished.
“Last year, CRAM (Christ Rescues All Mankind) was involved with the Hot Dog Festival to promote more youth to come,” said Mary Kay Baker, one of the organizers of the Recovery Zone which was located between the Iron Block Building and Veterans Park. “We discovered that as the recovery movement was going rampant, we decided it was a good time to merge the Recovery Zone and CRAM together.”
The goal was simply was to bring more awareness to Clinton County on addictions recovery and also remove the stigma attached to it.
The Recovery Zone was full of vendors that represented in-house treatment therapy, rehabilitation hoes, organizations, churches and a ton more of resources. The idea was to make this a fun area exciting with absolutely no judgement for the recovery families.
Joining Baker in this venture was Chris Ward, who works with Healthy Communities of Clinton County Coalition.
“This is so symbolic of the momentum that surrounds the recovery community right now,” said Ward. “There’s so much support. For as long as this Hot Dog Festival has been going on, and with it being the first year having the Recovery Zone, that’s pretty cool to have our own.”
CRAM was also responsible for the day-long list of Christian entertainment at Veterans Park. Starting with Sheltered Reality at 11 a.m., they were followed by Eclectic Worship Ensemble, another show by Sheltered Reality, Redemption Choir with evening performances by Jeremy Rosado, Terrian and Unspoken, who was the headliner for the day.
Baker and Ward were hoping the resources that are available will help families that are battling addiction or might have a loved one with an addiction.
“We’re living in recovery and any community, I want it to be this one,” said Ward. “There are so many resources. We have people from the outside communities coming in and asking us how do you do this? We can give them blueprints with evidence-based programming. But, it’s up to them to lobby their city and county leadership for the support of all those programs. We have that and we’re extremely lucky.”
Some of the groups represented at the Hot Dog Festival were the Indiana Recovery Center, Brianna’s Hope, 180, We Care, Shine FM, Phoenix Paramedic Solutions, YMCA from Lafayette, Riggs Community Center and United Way.
Ward added next year should bigger and better because they will be able to tap into resources and they are going to allow them to one-day commitments instead of two.