Hope Academy, Indiana's only recovery high school, is marking its 20th anniversary with a $20 million sustainability campaign designed to ensure the school continues changing lives for decades to come.The campaign aims to streng then academic and recovery programs while expanding family support services at the Indianapolis school that serves students struggling with substance abuse. "These students deserve to have a place where they feel safe, and they can earn credits, and they can grow so that they can eventually walk across the stage and graduate, which is something they didn't think would happen," said Rachelle Gardner, Hope Academy's executive director.For Katharine Stuart, a Hope Academy graduate, the school provided something she couldn't find elsewhere during her teenage years when she battled addiction. "I didn't really have a purpose, and so when you're introduced to something that takes you away from that and gives you the sense of belonging, it kind of just takes over," Stuart said. "So when I was first introduced to heroin, it took control of my entire life, where I was willing to go to any means to get it."Stuart enrolled at Hope Academy in 2011, where she discovered a new community and perspective on recovery."For me, I felt I had this sense of, you know, I would just grow out of it eventually rather than having the mindset of it being a disease," Stuart said. "Knowing that even though you are young, that you still can find sobriety and you have this whole life ahead of you is just incomparable to anything else that's out there." The school provides services beyond traditional education that create additional operational costs."It's not just a school. We have clinical services. We have recovery coaches, things that traditional schools don't have to pay for, we do have to pay for," Gardner said.Gardner believes the need for Hope Academy's services has grown since the school's founding two decades ago. "I think it's probably even a greater need than it was when we started 20 years ago, because a lot of adolescent treatment has gone away for them," Gardner said. "I just heard from a school counselor that they're suspending more and more kids for drug use in the school than they've seen in years."Stuart credits Hope Academy with planting the seeds of her recovery journey. "It was the first place that really like planted that seed that it was possible for me and that I was worth something else," Stuart said. "I feel like Hope is what planted the seed for me, that it didn't matter how old I was, that sobriety was obtainable and it was possible."The sustainability campaign has raised nearly $8 million so far. School leaders emphasize that the funding isn't about keeping doors open, but about maintaining comprehensive support services that students in recovery need during the school day. ...read more read less