50 Years of Showing Up
Since 1976, through every change in name, location, and leadership, Arbor Place has stayed rooted in one community and one belief: that people deserve the chance to heal, and that someone should be here when they are ready.
Why fifty years matters
Fifty years is rare for any organization. About a third of nonprofits close within their first decade. Many never see year five. The ones that fold usually share a story: the funding dried up, or the mission belonged to one person who eventually left, or the need they were built for went away.
There is a truth about this work that took me years to fully appreciate. A nonprofit exists to meet a need, which means the quiet hope underneath everything is that someday the need will be gone and the work will be done. We are not there. The need for what we do has not faded in 50 years. So we are still here, and we have kept growing to meet it.
Arbor Place lasted because it never belonged to any one person. The mission has been carried by decades of board members, counselors, staff, volunteers, donors, and community partners who each picked it up and handed it forward. Our funding changed shape many times, and we adapted every time. Through rocky stretches and steady ones, the community kept this organization standing.
I have been here for 25 of these 50 years. The heart of it has not changed. We are here because our neighbors deserve the chance to heal, and we intend to be here as long as that is true.
nonprofits close within their first decade.
Alcohol or other drugs only play a very small role in our problems. Only 3% to 5% of the problem is the alcohol or drugs. 95% to 97% are the everyday living problems and pressures we live under.
Decades before the field spoke of “whole-person care” or treating co-occurring conditions, the people here already understood that lasting recovery means rebuilding a life, not just removing a substance. That belief still runs through everything Arbor Place does today, across outpatient and residential treatment, mental health care, prevention, and recovery support.
Fifty years of growing to meet the need.
The look of the place has changed many times. The purpose never has.
It starts with a need, and a partnership
The Dunn County Association on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse, Inc. is founded in Menomonie. From the very beginning it works hand in hand with the Dunn County Department of Human Services, its primary funding partner and a driving force behind its creation. For its first two decades, this is fundamentally a Dunn County organization. Prevention is part of the mission from day one.
We are searching board minutes and the Dunn County News for the organization's founding records, including its first board members.
A halfway house called "Our House"
The organization's halfway house becomes known around town simply as "Our House." The name, and later "Arbor House," only ever belonged to the house itself, never the organization, and people still use it affectionately today. The house starts with roughly 10 beds and grows over the years.
Growing in place, and reaching rural neighbors
An addition expands the house as demand grows. The organization runs an intensive 5-Day Primary Outpatient Program built on the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon, open to clients and their families. To reach rural residents and farm families, branch offices open in communities including Colfax and Durand.
Coverage of the 13th annual Teen Institute, with space to read and download the original.
Prevention, powered by the community
The 13th annual Teen Institute on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse brings area youth together for a week of prevention education, sponsored by local businesses and civic groups including the Menomonie Lions Club and 3M of Menomonie. One example, among many across the decades, of the community investing in prevention right alongside the organization.
A new name, a new level of care, a wider mission
Three things change at once, and together they remake the organization. It is renamed Arbor Place, Inc., a deliberate rebrand at a difficult moment, meant to reset how the community saw the organization and to move forward. The halfway house converts into a formal residential treatment program. And for the first time, Arbor Place begins contracting with counties beyond Dunn County. What had been a Dunn County service starts becoming a regional treatment provider.
Sixteen beds, and a broader region
A second addition brings the 21st Street house to 8 bedrooms and 16 residential beds. Reported figures from this era show hundreds of clients served each year. The organization is now a treatment provider for much of the region, no longer only Dunn County.
New leadership, same mission
Jill Gamez, who joined in 2001 as a prevention specialist, becomes Executive Director, continuing a line of leaders who each carried the mission forward through steady years and hard ones.
The leap to Kothlow Avenue
Arbor Place breaks ground on a purpose-built campus, funded by community fundraising and a USDA loan of just over $5 million. It is the most significant growth in the organization's history. Residential capacity doubles from 16 beds to 32, in separate men's and women's neighborhoods. The new outpatient clinic is built with 8 offices and opens with just 3 clinicians. Room to grow into, on purpose.
A first for clinical care
Dr. Jill Hasenberg joins Arbor Place as Medical Director. The organization has worked with medical directors before, but Dr. Hasenberg is the first brought on full-time, on staff, serving both as Medical Director and as a direct care provider for clients.
Breaking ground for mothers and children
Arbor Place breaks ground on a $4.9 million, 20-bed Women and Children's Residential Treatment unit, funded through a Wisconsin Department of Health Services grant drawn from opioid settlement funds. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul joins the groundbreaking.
Doors open for families
The Women and Children's unit opens, allowing mothers to stay with their young children during residential treatment. It is the only program of its kind in the region. Within its first months, mothers arrive with children as young as a few months old.
A mature organization, still growing, because the need is still here. Still rooted in the same community that built it.
Arbor Place has never stood on its own.
For 50 years, this community has carried the mission alongside us, none more so than the partnership that started it all.
partnership
Dunn County Department of Human Services
From the beginning, the Dunn County Department of Human Services was the organization's foundation. For the first two decades it was the primary funder and was woven into nearly every part of the work, even helping select leadership. That relationship has evolved over 50 years, but the partnership endures. It is, in the truest sense, a 50-year relationship between two organizations serving the same community.
Area schools
Prevention programming in the Menomonie, Elk Mound, Boyceville, and Colfax districts, and in Pierce County schools including Spring Valley, Plum City, and Ellsworth.
The courts and law enforcement
Dunn County Treatment Court and referral partnerships that connect people to treatment.
Rural communities and farm families
Served through branch offices in Colfax, Pepin, Durand, and today River Falls.
Local businesses and civic groups
Sponsors of prevention, fundraisers, and capital campaigns across five decades.
Being compiled now. This area can hold a simple named list or a logo wall.
1976
Today
Our name has changed. Our look has changed. Our roots have not.
We are marking 50 years with a community celebration in September 2026. If Arbor Place has been part of your story, we would love to have you there.
Learn about our 50th Anniversary Celebration →