PORTSMOUTH — The Workman Center (TWC), 1616 Grant Street in Portsmouth is officially open. The sign has been unveiled. The ribbon has been cut, and balloons launched. The grand opening was held on Friday.
Jeanette Langford, director of human resources for TWC, opened the ceremony with a warm welcome.
“It is a beautiful morning out here, and this is a great day to be out. We are so glad that you came out, because it is a wonderful opportunity for Portsmouth today to have a facility that offers hope, and prevention to those clients which we know is so need in this city,” Langford said.”On top of that, it also offers jobs, which are also very important here. We are just thankful that Mr. White chose to come from the Virginia area to locate a facility here in the Portsmouth area. He didn’t have to do that. He could have gone any place else. This is the place he chose, and this is the place where it was needed, and we are just so glad to have the Center opening this afternoon.”
Langford then called on Daniel White, the visionary and owner of TWC. Langford said the new facility is White’s gift to Portsmouth.
White, who is a native of Portsmouth, said opening a facility of it’s kind has been a desire of his for a long time.
“I am back home, and this is something that I wanted to do for a long time, to bring some sort of hope that leads a pathway to breaking the cycle of addiction,” White said. “It is my feeling that breaking the true cycle of dependency is giving individuals the opportunity to help themselves, their families exist and thrive.”
Connecting people from the Washington D.C. area where White’s A & I Enterprises, Inc. business is located, to the Portsmouth area is the goal.
“We are going to be able to with this facility here, provide the counseling. We are going to provide the prevention,” White said. “We are going to provide intervention and training, and we are creating a pipeline with our friends back in the D. C. area and we’re creating connections in this area to once and for all, put our clients on a path of breaking the cycle of dependency.”
Joanna Krohn, director of TWC, said the tragedy of losing her son Wesley Workman in a drug related incident has been turned into triumph.
“Today is kind of a bitter sweet day, but mostly I am happy. I am full of pride,” Krohn said. “I have been able to take a terrible tragedy and turn it into something that could help other people. The people that surround me that have helped put this together, and Dan, who owns this and has brought it to Portsmouth, I can’t thank them enough. If I didn’t have this here today, I would probably be sitting at home crying, but I am happy, and smiling, and I know that my son is smiling down on me with a big grin on his face.”
Maxine Malone, CEO of TWC, said the vision is to redirect misguided steps of their clients whose lives have been going in the wrong direction.
“I am very exciting that we are opening a new facility with a different taste, and a different vision,” Malone said. “Our vision is to not only keep our clients from walking around the mountain, now we want to take them by the hand and take them step by step to climb up the mountain with the different type of program and services that we will provide.”
Among the services TWC will offer include, individual and group counseling, crisis intervention, case management, AoD prevention, and a re-entry program.
“For instance, the assessments. We are going to be providing the treatment, although we will not provide any types of drugs, we will send them to a doctor,” Malone said. “As far as the re-entry program, we will help people who are coming back from various institutions and back into our community.”
Malone also said TWC will assist individuals who are a high risk for going to prison by helping to find job opportunities for them, train them, and actually help them get to a job site.
Judge Alan Lemons, and New Boston councilman Mike Payton were among the many community members who came out to show their support for the TWC grand opening. Immediately following the ceremony, guests were invited inside for lunch, tours, and door prizes inside of the facility.
White said the grand opening for TWC went perfectly, and stated there is more to come.
“I can’t think of any better way to open the facility,” White said. “It is the perfect day, we thought that it was going to rain, but we got by that one. Now we are on to the next step and that’s actually getting people in, and getting them recovered. We want the public to stay tuned for the next announcement, which is going to be in the next two or so months.”
For more information regarding TWC visit the website: www.twc-ai.com, or call 740-529-1930.
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Daniel White, owner of The Workman Center, 1616 Grant Street in Portsmouth addressed the crowd at the grand opening ceremony on Friday.
Joanna Krohn, director of The Workman Center, located at 1616 Grant Street in Portsmouth. Krohn participated in the unveiling of the sign of the Center named in memory of her son Wesley Workman who died eight years ago in drug related tragedy.
Owner of The Workman Center, 1616 Grant Street in Portsmouth, Daniel White performed the ribbon-cutting for the new facility on Friday afternoon.
