True North Recovery receives $71,000 grant from Alaska Mental Health Trust

WASILLA — True North Recovery was one of several Valley organizations to receive a grant from the Alaska Mental Health Trust for this quarter.

“It’s huge. It will allow us to continue to grow,” True North Recovery founder Karl Soderstrom said.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority Trust awarded over $600,000 in grants to nonprofits, tribal entities, state and local government agencies, and service providers across the state for the second fiscal quarter of 2021.

The trust awards grants each quarter from the annual grant program that contains approximately $25 million. Groups are chosen based on their alignment to the trust’s core mission and values.

Other Valley groups who received the grant include Daybreak Inc., Set Free Alaska, and Mat-Su Health Foundation (for R.O.C.K. Mat-Su).

“Trust grants fund partners across the state that are working to provide support and necessary services to our beneficiaries,” Alaska Mental Health Trust CEO Mike Abbott stated in a recent press release. “We are grateful for our grantees and others in Alaska who are helping improve the lives of our beneficiaries through their efforts.”

Soderstrom said this grant from the trust coupled with another recent $50,0000 grant from the Mat-Su Health Foundation will greatly aid their efforts helping Valley residents get treatment for their addiction to drugs or alcohol.

The grassroots operation reached an exciting milestone for their operation and the Valley’s recovery community by launching a new residential treatment center for men and women in the fall of 2020.

The new facility will feature both men’s and women’s residential services, complete with full furnished bedroom units on opposite sides, an industrial kitchen, a classroom, several office units, recreation areas with pool tables and flat screens. There is even a full fledged movie theater room with a projector screen and rows of seats.

Soderstrom said the new housing unit is one of the most shining examples of positive progress being made in spite of the hurdles thrown by COVID-19.

“That’s been a huge, huge deal for us,” Soderstrom said.

Another point that Soderstrom is proud of is the fact that they’ve been able to keep their face to face counseling sessions intact while maintaining social distance and offering remote options to the community.

From group therapy to intensive case management, True North Recovery covers a gauntlet of recovery services.

Soderstrom said they have 15 beds at the residential center, and they serve an average of 85 clients at a given time. He said there’s a short waiting list for their residential facility and no waiting list for outpatient intake. He said that waiting too long to get help can mean the difference between life and death.

“We absolutely want to honor and respect the severity of COVID-19. What the reality is that the survival rate for folks that actually contract covid-19 is like 99.99 percent… People with an opioid addiction, they don’t a have a survival rate anywhere near as high,” Soderstrom said. “Just because we have a COVID-19 pandemic, doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination for the opioid epidemic.”

For more information and to register for treatment, call 907-313-1333 or visit tnrak.org. For more urgent and immediate help available 24 hours a day, call the crisis line at 907-982-HOPE

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com