Rather than a crisis center or a treatment center, Hope Spot specializes in supportive programs like peer recovery coaching, housing and ID navigation, support groups and youth prevention programs. Hope Spot also distributes and trains people in the use of Narcan to revive overdosed drug users.
Hope Spot celebrated its 10-year anniversary earlier this year.
“Since we do not do any kind of clinical work, ours is just supportive. So it’s just helping people (link) to the systems that might be able to assist them, or just to be able to talk with somebody...who has walked the same road,” Executive Director and Founder Amy Pulver said.
The organization’s Beavercreek location at 3852A Kemp Road was inspired by a desire to serve more of Greene County, Pulver said, specifically with a focus on veterans, families where grandparents are raising their grandchildren, and prevention programs in local schools.
“We also wanted to provide services to a community where addiction might look a little bit different, mental health conditions might look a little bit different. Addiction doesn’t discriminate,” she said.
The organization’s staff — many of whom have personal experience with these issues — provide these services at no cost.
Pulver, herself a Beavercreek resident, started the community support group that would eventually become Hope Spot in 2011, after watching her husband struggle with addiction to prescription painkillers following a serious injury.
“That’s certainly when I became very aware of our need as well in this community for just supportive services,” she said. “When it happens to you, you don’t know where (to go), who to call or what to do.”
Pulver founded Hope Spot in 2015 following the death of her husband from an overdose.
“To be able to say to another mom, or another wife, ‘Your son was so much more than the manner in which he died,’ it just helps people to process along their own journey. Addiction — whether it’s the individual impacted by it or family impacted — it’s very isolating ... so our biggest mission is just connection, connecting with people and letting them know that they’re not alone.”
The specific programs provided by the Hope Spot Beavercreek Community Resource Center will be further shaped by the needs of clients, Pulver said, adding that Hope Spot’s return to her hometown felt like a full-circle moment.
“There is help out there,” she said. “Even here in Greene County, there’s a lot of support and a lot of programs, but navigating that can be overwhelming. We just try to help you navigate it alongside you, and be able to use our experience ... to plug people into a place that they might fit and get the help that they need.”
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