A PRICELESS PROPOSAL

Cedar Lodge Has Helped Abusers Change Their Lives, But It Needs More Help

Cedar Lodge can't save every drug abuser in North Alabama. It doesn't even
have room for all of them who want to be helped. It has room for just some.

And the room it has is in a deteriorating building that costs too much to
maintain. So the lodge, operated by Mountain Lakes Behavioral Healthcare in
Guntersville and supported by public and private donations, wants to build
a new center that would serve a few more clients in better surroundings.

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In its 20 years, Cedar Lodge has had its share of success stories for both
men and women - it's one of the few drug-abuse prevention programs with
coed housing. It undoubtedly will have more if it can get better facilities
and expand its census from 24 to 28 patients.

That's a mere dent, of course, in the number of drug abusers in this region
who need help. But we don't have a successful national program for treating
drug abuse. All we can do is help people who need it and want it - one at a
time. That's what Cedar Lodge does best.

To change as many lives as it can, Cedar Lodge needs more money. The board
that runs the lodge is trying to get help from the Legislature and
Congress, but you can help, too.

The agency is seeking money for construction and for furnishings. If you
want to support the lodge, you can get more information by calling Cedar
Lodge's director, Kay King, at (256) 582-4465 or Jerry Johnson, executive
director of Mountain Lakes, at (256) 582-3202.

Cost of the new building: about $1.2 million. Amount available so far for
building the new center and extending a sewer line to the lodge property:
about $394,000. Estimated value of a life saved: priceless.

That's a bargain we can't let get away.