It will soon be the site of similar triumphs and growth, but it will have a different name.

Once known as Gateway to Discovery, it is now the Serenity House. It is one of three women’s recovery houses in Fort Dodge operated by Community & Family Resources.

Mary Wild knows firsthand the importance of such places.

She lived in Gateway to Discovery for two years. Now clean and sober for six years after decades of addiction, the Fort Dodge resident summed up her recovery for those who gathered Thursday for a ribbon-cutting to dedicate the Serenity House.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Messages of hope and inspiration are found throughout the new Serenity House. This one is on an upstairs bedroom door.

“Having a safe place to live for the first couple years of my sobriety was so important,” she said.

She said moving into Gateway to Discovery was “one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.”

The Serenity House is the second women’s recovery house Community & Family Resources has opened within the last year, according to Michelle De La Riva, the executive director of CFR. The organization now has three such houses for women and two for men. She said CFR is really growing in that area of recovery, which is “exciting for us.”

“We cannot thank the community enough for welcoming us,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance Ambassadors, Matt Johnson said, “The life-changing work that will happen in this house is what helps to make our community great.”

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
People gather in the dining room of the Serenity House on South 17th Street Thursday afternoon following the ribbon cutting ceremony conducted by the Ambassadors of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance. The house will be home to up to nine women at a time who are completing substance abuse treatment.

Living in the Serenity House, or any of the other CFR recovery houses, is the final phase of the substance abuse treatment process at CFR. De La Riva said people start in a residential treatment program at the CFR facility on Avenue M West. That treatment lasts 30 to 45 days. Then they move into a halfway house for six to nine months. In the halfway house, there is still regular treatment programming.

After the halfway house, people can live in a recovery house for one year. De La Riva said they are expected to work fulltime, and if they’re not working fulltime they are to be volunteering.

“We want them doing something,” she said.

No CFR staff members live in the recovery houses, but a case manager visits regularly to check on the residents.

The Serenity House will receive its first residents in a couple of weeks, according to De La Riva. She said up to nine women will live there.

The house at 701 S. 17th St. was built in 1920.