ST. LEO, Fla. — What began as unimaginable heartbreak for one Pasco County family is becoming a source of hope for college students recovering from addiction.
After losing their son, Derek, to addiction, Dewey and Becky Mitchell are helping create a program at Saint Leo University they hope will give other young people the support their son never had.
"Derek was a wonderful young man," Dewey Mitchell said. "And of course, I miss him terribly."
WATCH: Pasco family's gift creates recovery program at Saint Leo inspired by son's legacy
Derek Mitchell graduated magna cum laude from Florida State University and went on to build a successful career before losing his battle with addiction. Rather than allowing grief to define them, his parents decided to honor his memory by helping others facing similar struggles.
"The whole situation was so terrible for us and the fact that he had so much potential," Mitchell said. "We started thinking about, boy, it would sure be great if there's a way we could help out in some way to keep somebody else from going through that same scenario that Derek went through."
The Mitchells donated $1 million to Saint Leo University to establish the Derek J. Mitchell Collegiate Recovery Program, a residential community designed for college students recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.
The program will provide sober housing, counseling, peer support, and a structured environment to help students maintain their recovery while earning a college degree.
"Research that we did shows there's over 600,000 students nationwide in college who identify as being in some level of recovery," said Stephen Kubasek, vice president of University Advancement at Saint Leo University. "And there's less than 200 colleges across the nation that have anything similar to this program."
To develop the initiative, Saint Leo leaders visited Augsburg University in Minneapolis, home to the nationally recognized StepUP® recovery program. The nearly 30-year-old program has become a model for collegiate recovery communities across the country.
"The thing that impressed me the most is the fact that these people were able to mingle with the rest of the campus and they were treated the same even though they were in recovery," Dewey Mitchell said. "Everybody knew they were in recovery. But they weren't segregated, so to speak. There was not a stigma attached to that."
Only a small number of colleges nationwide offer residential recovery communities, and Saint Leo's will be the only residential collegiate recovery program at a private Catholic university in Florida.
For Dewey Mitchell, the program is about more than honoring his son's memory. It's about creating opportunities for other young people to succeed.
"I think Derek would love it," Mitchell said. "I think he'd love it and I think he'd be so honored to have his name attached to it."
Saint Leo University expects to begin accepting students into the Derek J. Mitchell Collegiate Recovery Program next year.
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