Craig Gittens
Hank Ryan
Daystar Center illuminates the potential in people—helping them find it when they may not see it in themselves.
Craig Gittens and Hank Ryan personally have experienced such a transformation at Daystar. Several years ago, they were recovering from substance use disorders—now they’re employees.
“My office is 20 steps from where my bed was,” said Gittens, who is a case manager.
Gittens sees himself in every person in need who walks through the door, and that full-circle level of empathy energizes him to do more than just contribute to Daystar’s mission. Rather, he serves with his soul.
“If I hit the lottery, I would not quit my job,” he said. “That’s a promise.”
Ryan, who is Daystar’s director of facility maintenance, immediately agreed.
“I wouldn’t either,” he said. “Who wouldn’t want to work at the place that helped save their life?”
For the last quarter of a century, the drug and alcohol treatment center, located on N. 18th St. in Harrisburg, has provided long-term residential treatment for about 130 men each year. These men have completed a detox or rehab program, and, upon leaving, need a transitional place to call home.
At Daystar, home is more than just a bed to lay their head. The organization provides evidence-based counseling and compassionate support, and they model and mold healthy routines and mindsets through community involvement, spiritual guidance and exercising daily life skills.
Daystar also believes that family can play an integral role in the recovery process, as such involvement can increase recovery success rates. For residents who arrive with the backing of family support, a family program is available to facilitate group counseling and shared healing. And for those without a close-knit family, they gain one.
“Addiction is a disease of isolation, so we really want them to build support from the ground up,” said Daystar’s CEO Fern Wilcox, who plans to open a women’s treatment facility in New Cumberland within the next year called Rachel’s House—named in tribute of her daughter who passed away in 2019 and had 11 years in recovery.
Residents at Daystar break bread together, and they bicker as brothers might, but what makes their bond unbreakable is that they’re walking alongside one another—finding the way forward, together.
“I still call many of the men I lived with, including Hank, my brothers to this day,” Gittens said.
Daystar knows that, for many, the recovery process does not end at their doorstep. Those who graduate through the program bring a brotherhood with them and connections to community-rooted resources such as housing assistance and mental health services.
While the long-term goal is that those who go through Daystar never need to come back, they’re always welcome—to receive help again, to simply say, “Hi,” to mentor future residents or volunteer, or maybe even to fill an open job like Gittens and Ryan.
“We don’t take the credit for their success,” Wilcox said. “Each individual who graduates through our program did it themselves. We just supported them and believed in them. They had it in them all along.”
Daystar Center is located at 125 N. 18th St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.daystarrecovery.com.
If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!
