TROSA DIRECTOR EARNS $130,000 FORD GRANT

DURHAM -- Kevin McDonald, director of the TROSA drug rehabilitation
program, was named a winner of a $130,000 grant from the Ford
Foundation Thursday.

The Herald-Sun reported on Sept. 11 that McDonald was among the 20
winners of the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World
awards. The terrorist attacks that day in New York, where the
foundation's offices are located, postponed the official announcement
originally planned for Thursday last week. An award ceremony in New
York scheduled for last Saturday has been postponed
indefinitely.

"I'm thrilled," McDonald said Thursday. "I just didn't think I had a
chance in the world."

More than 3,000 people were nominated for the award, which includes
$100,000 to aid each recipient's work and $30,000 for supporting
activities. McDonald said the money would go "to help with the
infrastructure of TROSA" and for staff training.

TROSA stands for Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abuse.
Since McDonald founded it eight years ago, the organization has grown
to 270 recovering drug and alcohol addicts living and working in 20
pieces of real estate it owns in Durham. Participants receive training
in a variety of TROSA-owned local businesses by which the program
supports itself.

District Court Judge Craig Brown, TROSA's founding board chairman and
a member of its board of directors, called McDonald "a ball of fire
with a deep personal goal in mind: to bring recovery to as many
addicted people as he possibly can."

"When he comes into a room, he lights up the room with his energy and
purpose," Brown said. "He knows what he's doing, how to get it done,
and how to make people who might not care, to help him."

Award winners will meet periodically for two years to share
ideas.

"It opens up a lot of doors to us," McDonald said.

Both McDonald and Brown thanked the program's support from the city
and county governments, the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and
other organizations and agencies.

"Durham should be extremely proud," Brown said.

McDonald, a former heroin addict, in 1979 entered a similar program in
San Francisco known as Delancey Street and worked in it for 12 years.