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A dedication to Chris and Kelly Grant in the new Chris and Kelly’s HOPE fitness park.<\/p><\/div>\n
The idea for Chris and Kelly\u2019s HOPE Foundation was born, and six years later the 501c3 organization has become one of the most powerful forces taking on substance abuse in the Greenville area, giving money to approximately 60 different groups. A prime example is Montford Hall, a residential recovery program envisioned by Alex Kirby, Psy.D., that became a reality in March when it opened in Asheville, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Grant\u2019s) contribution to Montford Hall has been substantial,\u201d says Kirby. \u201cI\u2019m not saying we wouldn\u2019t be open without it, but it certainly made a huge difference in us being open sooner, no question about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montford Hall offers young men a chance to beat addiction that wasn\u2019t available for Steve when he and his wife were trying to save their sons\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been working with drug-addicted teenage boys in one setting or another for years,\u201d Kirby says. \u201cThe best predictor of outcome is length of time in treatment, and that tends to be about a year. Yet most treatment programs in the country are geared around insurance compensation, which tends to be somewhere between 30 and 60 days. We are 29 beds of about 150 beds in the country that provide this kind of treatment, and we\u2019re the only one on the east coast. So it\u2019s a pretty badly needed resource.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Grant started using drugs when he was 14, and the family fought a losing battle for seven years only to be blindsided five years later by the incomprehensible tragedy of discovering that the other son had become addicted as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first son and I were very close, and I knew very much about his use. My second son I didn\u2019t know really until the mid-point in his youth that he was using, and I really didn\u2019t know at the end that he\u2019d restarted,\u201d Grant says. \u201cIt was rough having a child who was addicted; it was very rough. In fact, it was rougher having a child that was addicted than actually dealing with his death. We used to kid, my ex-wife and I, that, well, here comes Thursday and Friday and Saturday night, and we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s almost like chaining up the wolfman and hoping he doesn\u2019t escape. That\u2019s a hard thing to do over a course of six or eight years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant grew up in Paramus, New Jersey, and ended up at Furman in 1976 after a chance encounter with an acquaintance from his hometown who was attending the university. A good baseball player, he was offered \u201ca little scholarship\u201d after Paladin team coach Tom Wall drove up to watch him play, which he accepted largely for the adventure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, crap, I\u2019ve never been 800 miles away from home. I might as well try it. And we got in the car and went to Furman sight unseen,\u201d Grant says. \u201cIt was a little tough the first three months. I was a little homesick. But it ended up being a great choice, and it\u2019s really directed my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant captained the 1979 and 1980 squads, and after graduation he joined Dave Ellison \u201972 in building a Northwestern Mutual office in Greenville. Ellison has now known Grant for 36 years, and their sons grew up playing basketball and soccer together. It wasn\u2019t easy to see his friend\u2019s struggles.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither you nor I nor anybody else can imagine losing both of your only children, your boys, to drug overdoses,\u201d Ellison says. \u201cI would say that he just has handled it as well as anybody could and has successfully found an avenue to channel that unbelievable loss into trying to do something positive. You\u2019ve got to admire someone who has the courage to make something happen that might be good for somebody else out of something that for most people might just ruin their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courage is what defines Grant to Kirby as well, and not just the courage to keep living productively.<\/p>\n
\u201cI only know one other person who\u2019s lost both kids, but I haven\u2019t known anybody who lost them to the same reasons,\u201d Kirby says. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine every moment of every day spent grieving over this issue. Steve has been very courageous in being frank about the struggle and risking the criticism that might come from people out of ignorance, really, that don\u2019t understand the problem and what causes it. That\u2019s a huge thing. Parents are so ashamed, and because of the culture we live in and the misunderstandings about addiction when a kid ends up being a drug addict, the parents get blamed. He was a great dad, and their mom was a great mom. Drug addicts come out of good families all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes it\u2019s impossible for those families to ever admit, even to themselves, that someone was an addict. Grant\u2019s refusal to live in that delusion gives his words power.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome\u00a0peoples\u2019 brains get twisted\u00a0when they are faced with unbearable loss, but Steve has gone head on. He doesn\u2019t shy away from the fact that his kids were drug addicts and that it was addiction that eventually killed them,\u201d Kirby says. \u201cHe\u2019s been able to be way more effective in helping people and addressing the problem because of his honesty about his kids\u2019 struggles. I work in this industry, and I don\u2019t see that very often.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant is involved with virtually every substance-abuse or mental-illness organization in Greenville, and he is one of only two Northwestern Mutual field members to have received its Community Service Award three times. Since 2013, Chris and Kelly\u2019s HOPE Foundation has been sponsored by Furman football coach Bruce Fowler as a beneficiary of South Carolina Coaches for Charity, and in 2015 Grant was awarded Furman\u2019s Lucius Weeks\u2019 Distinguished Service Award.<\/p>\n
Recently, the Chris and Kelly\u2019s HOPE Fitness Park opened just off the Swamp Rabbit Trail near the Furman campus, adjacent to the Phoenix Center\u2019s White Horse Academy, a 16-bed residential substance-abuse treatment center for adolescent males. It was dedicated with remarks from U.S. Congressman Trey Gowdy.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/20161020_SteveGrant_FitnessPark-20.jpg\")
The new Chris and Kelly’s HOPE fitness park is located just off the Swamp Rabbit Trail near the Furman campus.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cAbout 1,600 to 2,000 a people a day see that sign for that park\u00a0. . .\u00a0I\u2019m proud of that because I\u2019ve always been about raising awareness, and that\u2019s certainly something that helps us raise awareness,\u201d Grant says. \u201cIt\u2019s been nice to get this recognition, but it\u2019s really because we\u2019ve been successful raising awareness about what we\u2019re doing, not only in Greenville but throughout the state, and my goal is to move this throughout the country. I wish I had more time in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant\u2019s current focus is persuading more colleges and universities to implement campus recovery programs like the one adopted this year by the College of Charleston, which Kelly attended before dropping out four credits short of graduating. He was awarded his degree posthumously in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very big movement across the country,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the past if you put on an application \u2018I\u2019m addicted to drugs,\u2019 that would probably keep you from getting into school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant\u2019s experience taught him he wasn\u2019t alone. He also learned stereotypes about drug addicts are outdated, if they were ever accurate at all. One day, Grant hopes it will all be in a book to further increase awareness.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeroin is white, middle- and upper-class. It\u2019s the people who wait on you every day. It\u2019s the people you interact with at work,\u201d he says. \u201cI watched both of (my sons) leave my house in body bags, but they both took a different course to it. So it\u2019s an extra-fascinating read, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n