Jefferson County residents in recovery now have access to a recovery community center that will provide them with a safe, substance-free environment, said Jenny Armbruster, executive director of PreventEd.
The grand opening and open house for The Collective, Powered by PreventEd will be held from 1-5 p.m. Tuesday, June 24. The Collective, at 924 Jeffco Executive Drive in Imperial, is dedicated to supporting people and their families in all stages of recovery. It is operated by people in recovery for people in recovery, according to the nonprofit organization’s website.
The open house will give people a chance to tour the space, meet the team and discover how PreventEd programs help people navigate through recovery.
Armbruster said The Collective will offer peer support coaching; support programs; resource navigation; educational workshops; social and recreational activities; community volunteering and family support.
PreventEd, which has served the area for 60 years, announced plans to open a recovery community center in Jefferson County early this year.
Armbruster said staff members had been looking for property for a recovery community center since the end of last year and eventually worked with a Realtor who helped them find the Imperial location.
She said PreventEd leased the property on April 25 and hired certified peer specialists in early May. The center opened in mid-May with limited services.
“It’s kind of an industrial area, but it has some office space, some meeting room and some space around it, and it just really felt like the right location,” she said. “We decided to work the contract for lease on this property at least to start there and see if it works for our forever home or (see) if we grow and we might need to find other spaces. It felt like a really appropriate place for us to start and the right combination of different types of spaces.”
Armbruster said the building recently was updated and was in fantastic shape, so few modifications were needed. She believes the space had been empty for about a year and before that had housed an HVAC sales and service office.
She said The Collective will serve as a hub for recovery-related activities and support in Jefferson County.
When guests walk in, Armbruster said, there is a welcome area with couches, comfortable chairs and a television. The space has private offices where people may meet one-on-one with a peer specialist or have a private meeting. The building also has a meeting room, kitchen area and two garages. One of the garages is an exercise room with equipment and the other is a recreational room with a Ping-Pong table.
Armbruster said The Collective officially will begin a partnership on June 25 with Jefferson Franklin Community Action Corporation for transportation access to recovery support across the county. She said the Jefferson Franklin Community Action Corporation received funding to purchase an EZMO van.
“(JFCAC is) partnering with PreventEd to use the van in partnership with The Collective to support people in recovery with transportation needs,” she said. “EZMO is a volunteer-based transportation service coordinated through JFCAC. For this van, PreventEd staff at The Collective will manage the coordination.”
Armbruster said recovery is not a one-time event — it’s a lifetime journey.
“The Collective was created to meet that ongoing need, offering a visible recovery presence in the community and a supportive space for individuals and families to heal and thrive,” she said.
Armbruster has credited the Jefferson Foundation for providing funding to start a recovery community center in Jefferson County, adding that the foundation awarded a three-year project grant totaling about $900,000 to create the center in Jefferson County.
PreventEd, a St. Louis-based organization founded in 1965, has a mission of preventing and reducing harm associated with alcohol and drug use.
“We’re not a treatment agency,” Armbruster said. “We offer various school-based and community education. We offer connection to treatment and recovery services, and then we offer the certified peer specialist services to really help kind of walk with people anywhere on that continuum.
“We started doing school-based prevention services in the mid-80s, and we’ve been serving Jefferson County schools since that time. You know, we really continued to work with many districts within Jefferson County doing school-based prevention services. We work with the Jefferson County Drug Prevention Coalition. We’ve been part of that coalition since its founding and inception. We’ve worked with other grassroots groups across Jefferson County. We definitely have been providing services there for decades.”