By Lydia Dodd

Take Rams in Recovery, for instance. Established in 2013, the Virginia Commonwealth University collegiate recovery program provides students with resources to support their recovery journey. Now, thanks to Danielle Beale, the program’s benefits are extending beyond campus.

Beale’s work has created a bridge between VCU and its neighboring community colleges. A transfer student themself, they graduated from Reynolds Community College in 2023 before enrolling at VCU in 2024. But that was not their first connection with VCU.

While participating in the Mellon Pathways Program, a transfer initiative that connects Reynolds and Brightpoint community colleges with VCU, Beale was connected by their Pathways mentor to Tom Bannard, assistant director for recovery support at Rams in Recovery. Though Beale was still a Reynolds student at the time, the VCU program employed them as a certified peer recovery specialist.

“That’s a key thing, being able to coach a student that is going through an issue with substance use or their recovery,” Beale said. “I’m able to talk with them peer to peer, not as a counselor or therapist but just as someone that has had that experience.”

However, even as they were transitioning to VCU, Beale recognized that community college students could also benefit from Rams in Recovery resources.                        

“One of my greatest passions is community college,” said Beale, a gender, sexuality and women’s studies major in the College of Humanities and Sciences. “When I started at Reynolds, the need for some type of recovery, some type of awareness on opiates was lingering in my mind.”

When Rams in Recovery offered Beale the opportunity to focus on a specific project, they set out to strengthen the connection between the VCU program and the local community colleges.

Beale and a peer have taken over management of the program’s free coffee bike and free naloxone bike. The coffee bike aims to bring awareness about substance-use recovery on campus and is equipped with space to make fresh, pour-over coffee. In the time it takes to grind the beans and complete the pour, the barista is able to have a casual conversation about the recovery process. The naloxone bike serves a similar purpose – it’s equipped with a mannequin to train others on how to safely administer the overdose reversal drug on the go.

Through tabling efforts and attending area community college events with the free bikes, Beale has made a breakthrough in their passion project. They created the opportunity to lead a Narcan training course for staff at Reynolds, and they have other training courses around central Virginia in the works.

“There are a couple of community colleges in the state of Virginia that do have collegiate recovery programs, but not ours here locally,” said Omri Morris, Rams in Recovery peer recovery support coordinator. “Recovery is everywhere and the need for the resource is everywhere. Danielle is doing work that is going to far surpass their time at VCU.”

As a self-described introvert, Beale said being a peer recovery specialist was something they never thought they would achieve – along with getting a higher education. But after they participated in a prison re-entry program, a mentor suggested they go to school.

“I messed up a lot throughout my early years,” Beale said. “I look at my past and what I’m doing now [that] I could have been doing in my 20s or whatnot. But now I’m doing it.”

Their journey to VCU is anything but ordinary, yet Beale has used their unconventional path to guide and inspire others.

“[School has] been the best thing to happen,” they said, “and I never thought that it would be.”