The 19th annual Flossie Lewis Center Luncheon recognized Cal State Long Beach for its collaboration with the center on Thursday at The Grand: Long Beach Event Center.
CSULB and Long Beach City College were both awarded the 2009 Flossie Lewis Center Partnership Award.
The Flossie Lewis Center, located in Long Beach, is a program of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency of the South Bay (NCADD/SB). The center offers various alcoholism and drug dependence recovery programs designed especially for women.
Student volunteers from the art and women’s studies departments at CSULB, and horticulture department at LBCC have partnered with the center on various programs.
“It is agencies like these that are wonderful learning institutions that give great help to the Flossie Lewis Center,” said Michael Ballue, executive director of NCADD/SB.
The CSULB Department of Art sends students to the center to conduct art therapy classes. The students bring all of the art supplies that are necessary for the women who want to participate.
The Center for Community Engagement and the women’s studies department host a Saturday barbeque for the women at the center and their families once a year.
“Cal State Long Beach has supported the women at the Flossie Lewis Center in so many ways,” Ballue said.
The horticulture department at LBCC invites the women at the center to cut flowers and then donates the flowers to the center.
LBCC also provides financial aid assistance to the women at the center.
The $50-seat luncheon included raffles for prizes such as Disneyland tickets and spa certificates. A silent auction was also held for hotel stay packages and designer perfumes and bags.
All of the proceeds from the event went to the Flossie Lewis Center.
President F. King Alexander could not attend the luncheon to accept the award. Instead Michael Carbuto, director and chief of medical staff for CSULB Student Health Services and a member of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs (ATOD) Advisory Council, accepted the award.
“On behalf of President F. King Alexander and the university, we greatly appreciate this award,” Carbuto said.
Throughout the luncheon, speakers repeatedly emphasized the importance of education.
“Education is so important for the women of the Flossie Lewis Center,” said Beverly Lewis O’Neill, former Long Beach mayor and host of the event.
One of the programs offered is the New Life Program, and is designed to assist women who have been separated from their children because of addiction. The center helps the women reunite with their children, receive employment training and find housing.