ORGANIZING THE RECOVERY COMMUNITY Dear Friends, We hope by now you have heard the exciting news about our merger with Young People in Recovery (YPR), the national volunteer-based organization dedicated to improving access to treatment, education, employment and housing for young people in recovery. We are absolutely delighted to unite the nation’s top recovery advocacy organizations into a single, more powerful national force that will serve even more people in or seeking recovery, their friends, family members and supporters. The timing - announced in September during the 25th annual celebration of Recovery Month - couldn’t have been more perfect. This is truly a historic turning point for the nation’s recovery advocacy movement! “For more than four years, Faces & Voices of Recovery and YPR have informally collaborated in a partnership focused on advancing education about addiction recovery and providing support for those in or seeking recovery,” said Mike DeAgro, former chairman of the Board of YPR and current co-chair of the newly merged Board of Faces & Voices of Recovery and YPR. “By joining forces, Faces & Voices of Recovery and YPR can unite separate organizations into a single, stronger, national voice that can advocate for the needs of millions of people, of all ages, who need support while seeking or in continued recovery.”  Of course, many people have had questions about what this means on a day-to-day basis and I’d like to take this opportunity to address some of those. Faces & Voices of Recovery and YPR, while taking legal steps to formalize the merger such as incorporating under the same 501c3, joining administrative staffs and unifying the leadership team into one Board of Directors, will retain their distinct, individual identities, separate branding and continue to work under their own names to fulfill their complementary missions. Faces and Voices’ work with the Association of Recovery Community Organizations (ARCO), the Executive Directors Leadership Academy, our recovery community messaging and other trainings, technical assistance, and our partnership in ManyFaces1Voice, the online platform around the release of the documentary film, The Anonymous People, will remain unchanged. What will improve is our expanded ability to reach an even wider audience of voices dedicated to change while increasing organizational capacity and decreasing administrative costs. With 94 ARCO member organizations and 31 YPR chapters, our ability to continue building recovery infrastructure nationwide, is significantly increased.  We look forward to sharing news about our accomplishments and goals on a regular basis through the reintroduction of e-blasts and e-newsletters so you can stay up-to-date on all that is happening at Faces & Voices as well as YPR. We want you to know that, now more than ever, your face and your voice matters; that your recovery counts; and that we remain inspired by your collective contributions. Our commitment to you as a community is to continue working until all 23 million recovery voices are counted and the more then 20 million still in need are able to access their own pathway to recovery too! As our journey together continues please know we appreciate everything you do to carry our unified message of hope across America and into other nations. Thank you, Richard Buckman Board Chair Faces & Voices of Recovery   Get involved. Stay involved. Be the voice. The recovery movement needs you.