Just a mile and a half off of Interstate 44 in Lawrence County is a place seemingly forgotten by time. Flanking both sides of Mt. Vernon St. in Stotts City are old buildings in various states of disrepair – one is now an empty shell that’s been taken over by nature.
Further down, a set of stairs leads to a concrete slab and rubble, which appear to be from a structure that burned down some time ago. They date back to a period when lead and zinc mines were active in the area, and Stotts City was home to banks, grocery stores and other thriving businesses.
Roger Snockey lives just a mile from where he grew up. The 65-year-old farms on 800 acres, and his family ties in Stotts City go back more than 200 years.
“I think one of the things that’s happening there now is it’s basically just a ghost town," he said. "There’s still a couple of dozen – maybe – long time residents there, but for the most part it’s just fairly depressed, maybe transient population, I guess maybe you’d call it. People basically just go there now to get away from where they’ve been.”
Rachel Luebbering, is executive director of the Southwest Missouri Coalition of Charities and Community Services. And she’s part of the Barry/Lawrence Area Recovery Alliance or BLARA, comprised of folks like judges, public defenders, attorneys and people who’ve been incarcerated because of drug offenses. The group determined that Stotts City is a hub of addiction but not so much recovery, she said. So they decided to do something about it.
Standing in Stotts City’s Miners Park, Luebbering said they thought, '"maybe we could provide recovery and detox to go with recovery houses that are already there.' We’ve got one here across the street, the Whosoever, and right down the street, Whosoever, and I believe they’re on their sixth house for men and women.”
She and her husband purchased 15 acres of land within walking district of the park, which will be home to a recovery center for 48 people at a time. It will be staffed 24/7 by Integro Recovery, based in Mt. Vernon. A 2,000-square-foot men’s facility is nearly finished and is expected to open in late June, and a center for women will be constructed soon. BLARA plans to build 125 houses on the land. Some will be transitional housing but others will be for low-income residents and kids aging out of foster care.
“So, our idea is, you go to detox, you go to the local recovery houses and then you go to a transitional house, and, hopefully, you’re reunited with your kiddos, maybe a spouse, your family. You’ve got a job, a car, you’re making your way down the road and maybe you’re able to go on and become a functioning and productive member of society again,” said Luebbering.
Part of the plan is to have spaces where those working to get clean can spend time in nature. The Southwest Missouri Coalition of Charities and Community Services applied for and received a $25,000 grant to expand Miners Park, add picnic tables and some
play equipment, restore an historic gazebo and make other repairs. The money came from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks through the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation.
“We hope that it’s a place of pride. We know that where people have pride and buy-in in their communities, they don’t vandalize, they don’t steal, they don’t build their petty theft criminal records around it," she said. "Just to be able to have stuck with Stotts City and have grandparents living here that have grandchildren that want to come back and visit, be able to come to the park and have a place to go is pretty cool.”
She hopes community groups will use the gazebo and park for things like concerts and that it fosters a sense of community.
Down the road, on the 15 acres, Luebbering said they plan to create a community garden, which will be part of the recovery process.
“It’ll give the guys that come to the detox and have the housing to be able to work in the dirt, which is great mental health therapy, and be able to grow their own vegetables and fruits," she said.
They applied for and received Snap EBT, so people who come to the recovery houses and have food stamp cards can purchase the fruits and vegetables that they grow on the site, “which is a pretty big pride-in-self thing, I think, to see that and maybe some new careers out of horticulture will come from that.”
They eventually plan to add some hydroponics and a greenhouse as well as some raised beds. Luebbering envisions raising shrimp and fish on the land, too.
The goal is to help those with addiction problems become self-sufficient.
“Some of these people, when they come here, brushing their teeth and getting up in the morning is going to be an issue and then all of a sudden, if they plant a couple of acres of a garden, and they feed 50 people, that changes their outlook on themselves and the world," she said.
She envisions the garden to be like a town square for those who live on the site.
There will also be a community laundry and community shower for Stotts City residents without running water or other utilities.
Roger Snockey is pleased to see the changes in his town. He remembers that, as a child, the gazebo at Miners Park was where a lot of community events happened, like birthday parties and reunions.
He said what Luebbering and her team are doing in Stotts City is the biggest positive change he’s seen there in his 65 years.
“The population there now, the bigger part of it, is there because they don’t have anyplace else to go. There’s not much pride or not much organization, and what Rachel’s doing, those kind of things tend to, they – when you got one project like that going, they tend to feed off of each other and create others.”
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