Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center in Mazon plans Thursday open house

In advance of launching mental health counseling services for children, the Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center will celebrate with a Grundy County Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting at 4 p.m. Thursday in tandem with an open house and tours until 7 p.m. at 606 Depot St. in Mazon.

The center has been created through the Community Foundation of Grundy County.

Beginning in January, the new 501(c)(3) nonprofit will provide services to Grundy County youth ages birth to 18, said Julie Buck, executive director of the Community Foundation of Grundy County.

The open house also will feature a visit by Bunker, the facility dog for the Grundy County State’s Attorney’s Office, with future plans for GEWC to have its own therapy dog.

GEWC is located in the former Mazon State Bank building, which the foundation purchased in May and has spent several months remodeling, Buck said. The 10,000-square-foot, two-story building, also boasting a lower level, was in good shape, so work primarily focused on painting, recarpeting, adding an office and making a restroom wheelchair accessible, she said.

GEWC has a full volunteer board of directors, said Buck, noting member Jay Fillman of Mazon served as general contractor on the project, and was able to get some of the labor and materials donated for the renovation. Two weeks ago, Spring Grove Nursery in Mazon surprised them by donating five trees to the property’s landscaping.

Board member Chris Harty reactivated the bank’s time and temperature display, where the new GEWC signage is now in place.

Speaking at the open house will be the center’s clinical director Adam Kotowski, who will take his post at the start of December. A website with online registration is being built.

“So far, the funding has been purely (from) the Community Foundation,” Buck said. “In 2023, we set two strategic grant-making priorities, one of which is mental health. And we know from the data that there is a severe lack of mental health providers for youth in Grundy and for low-income families in Grundy. We have a medical billing contractor getting us set up with all the insurance companies, including Medicaid. … Donations will be used to supplement the families on a sliding scale depending on their ability to pay for services.”

She said the nonprofit’s plan is for supplemental money to assist families who are uninsured or underinsured.

“Our staff will be incredibly small in the beginning,” Buck said, noting the types of services initially will be limited.

In December, Kotowski will get everything ready for the referral system and will sign up families so he can begin providing counseling services in January.

In addition, the staff will include Stacey Johnson, a part-time nurse practitioner with her endorsement in psychiatry. Her role in the beginning will be to do a physical exam on each new client to make sure there is nothing physiological (such as high blood pressure or blood sugar or chronic pain) hindering mental health.

“We have all sorts of ideas for the types of specialty counselors that we would like to employ in the future,” Buck said. “Eventually, art therapy, music therapy, horticulture, in addition to traditional counselors.”

People can support the nonprofit with monetary donations. Items needed to further equip the building will be detailed on wish lists in each of the spaces on the open house tours.

In the future, the center would like to incorporate the bank’s former kitchen on the lower level as part of the counseling process, perhaps by baking cookies or making grilled cheese together.

A theory in youth therapy “is that we all do better when our hands are busy, because it frees up our mind,” Buck said, explaining that space for activities was one reason they selected the 10,000-square-foot, wide-open property.

Already in place are a ping-pong table, piano and art section. Plans are to add raised garden beds next summer.

The counseling center’s name Eunoia is a Greek word whose meaning helps express its goals: well mind, beautiful thinking, condition of receptivity, good will and connection.