Volunteer
More Than Money
The Foundation runs on the same thing Jaywalker runs on: a community of people who show up. Volunteers help us run events, mentor recipients, speak to family members of prospective applicants, and carry the work out into the world. If you have time, skill, or a story to share, we have a place for you.
Where Volunteers Help
Jaywalker alumni who are willing to be paired with current scholarship recipients, in person or by phone, as an additional source of support during and after treatment. Light commitment, big impact.
Family members of past scholarship recipients who are willing to talk with families considering applying. The most useful conversation a worried parent can have is often with another parent who has been there.
The Foundation holds an annual fundraising event in the Roaring Fork Valley and smaller gatherings elsewhere. Volunteers help with planning, logistics, hospitality, and follow-up.
Lawyers, accountants, designers, writers, photographers, videographers, and other professionals who can contribute time or expertise to Foundation operations. We are a lean organization. Skilled help goes a long way.
Share the Foundation with people who might be in a position to give, to apply, or to refer someone who should apply. Word of mouth is how most of our donors and many of our applicants find us.
Email with a sentence or two about who you are and how you would like to help. We will follow up within a week.
Why We Exist
We exist for one reason: to help families with an opportunity for a life-changing experience. To support their loved ones with an authentic recovery experience, who would not otherwise be able to get there. That is the whole job.
Insurance covers some of the cost of treatment. Families cover some of it. For many of the men who need Jaywalker most, neither covers enough. The Foundation closes the gap, and in doing so, it does what nothing else in the system is built to do: it funds the duration of care that actually changes a life. Not thirty days. Ninety. And then the transitional months that follow, where a man learns to live as someone he has never been before.
What We Believe
We believe addiction is a disease, not a moral failing, and that the men who suffer from it deserve the same dignity and the same quality of care anyone else would receive for any other illness.
We believe a man’s recovery is his own. The Foundation does not pay for compliance; it pays for the chance to do the work.
We believe in long-term care. Thirty days is rarely enough. Most of the men we fund stay for ninety days, then transition into transitional living, then sober living. The Foundation funds duration because duration is what works.
We believe in our community. The Roaring Fork Valley, the brotherhood at Jaywalker, the clinical team, the alumni network: this is not an average treatment program. The Foundation exists to put men inside this specific community because we have watched it save the lives of men who had run out of other options.
Who We Are Not
We are not Jaywalker Lodge. The Foundation is an independent giving entity that funds scholarships at Jaywalker. We do not run the clinical program, set admissions criteria, or determine treatment plans. We fund access. The Lodge does the work.
Closing
There are men at Jaywalker today who would not be there without the Foundation, and without the donors who make the Foundation possible. Their continuing recovery is the answer to the only question that matters: did the work do what it was supposed to do? It did. It still does. That is why we are here.