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PHOENIX HOUSE GRADUATION CEREMONY HIGHLIGHTS HOPE AND PROMISE

130 participate in ceremony on the Upper West Side

NEW YORK, NY, November 10th, 2006 – Punctuated by frequent cheers and bursts of thunderous applause, 130 teens and adults took part in a Phoenix House graduation ceremony November 9 at Congregation Rodeph Shalom on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

“You have made good your second chance,” Dr. Mitch Rosenthal, founder of Phoenix House, told the graduates. “You all now know far more about yourselves than you did when you came to Phoenix House. You have found deep inside yourselves both the demons you must confront and the strength with which to confront them.”

Sara Jones, who spoke for the class, talked of growing up in the Bronx and — at age 11 — dropping out of school to sell drugs. “I remember never having enough of anything — soap, food, money,” she said. “Selling drugs gave my family money.”

Phoenix House, she told the crowd, gave her a second chance. “It taught us all how to get better at getting better,” she said.

State Senator Jose M. Serrano, who delivered the commencement address, told the graduates they are all heroes: “Heroes are people who have faced defeat and still get themselves up and try again. You are all heroes here tonight.”

Some 400 family members and friends were on-hand to cheer and support the graduates.

“I’m here to let my friend Alan know just how proud I am,” Anna Marie Copny said. “He has overcome a problem he has had for 25 years and I could not be happier and more proud.”

Phoenix House is the nation’s largest nonprofit provider of substance abuse treatment and prevention services, operating more than 100 programs in nine states. Since 1967, Phoenix House has treated more than 100,000 substance abusers – currently caring for a population of more than 6,000 at residential centers for adults and residential high schools (called Phoenix Academies) for teens, as well as outpatient, and after-school programs. Watch the Video.

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