When Jacob Brown suffered a mental health crisis a couple of years ago, it changed everything.
“I was in denial,” Brown told recalled. “I was like, ‘This can't be happening to me.’”
Brown was diagnosed with a mental illness. Early on, he tried many different medications, but nothing helped.
“I needed to change my mindset and try to work with what I have. And take one day at a time,” he said.
That journey eventually led him to a nonprofit in Fort Myers called Hope Clubhouse .
“This place has meant the world. It's just made me feel like an entirely different person,” Brown described. “It gives me something to get up for in the morning.”
Hope Clubhouse is a community for adults living with a mental illness. It’s a community beyond the crisis — and a place beyond the hospital.
“It's a refuge,” Dante Pastore described. “Big time. A safety net.”
Over Pastore’s 10-year journey with mental illness, other programs he tried didn’t stick for more than a couple of months.
He’s now been at Hope Clubhouse for a couple of years.
“Where you're out there in world, you're dealing with so much that's going against you. That when you come in here — things are going for you,” Pastore explained.
Hope Clubhouse is a day program, so members can come and go as they like.
There’s an urban garden, a full kitchen and a business unit so people can gain or hone their skills.
The nonprofit works with its members to find them housing and jobs, and helps them regain control of their lives.
“We're a community of support, right? But we're really a family,” Lauren Walker, the CEO of Hope Clubhouse, told Gulf Coast News. “We've become a family with our members.”
While Walker is proud of what they do at the nonprofit, they want to do even more so they can reach more people in need.
Hope Clubhouse has launched a campaign to raise money to renovate their building. Once that’s done, they hope to add a second location in North Fort Myers or Cape Coral.
“We've never turned anyone away. We will make it work as best we can. It's that we know that there's much more need out there,” Walker said. “We need to meet them where they're at.”
“This place is a hidden gem, and I don't want it to be hidden anymore,” Brown said.
That’s because he knows what it means to him. Most of all, it’s a place where he belongs.
“There's a safe place for you to be, where there are people just like you, and they don't judge you,” he said. “They care about you.”