When the Rally for Recovery takes over Civic Center Park on Saturday, voices will rise above the downtown traffic, some chanting, some singing, all carrying the same word forward: recovery.

The annual event celebrates hope and healing for people recovering from substance use, mental health challenges, and other struggles, while also honoring the power of community support.

Organized as part of National Recovery Month, the rally is a reminder that recovery is possible and no one has to face it alone. 

“This is our 22nd year, and the rally has always been about putting a face and a voice on recovery,” said Tonya Wheeler, executive director of Advocates for Recovery Colorado, the nonprofit hosting the event. “By our silence, we let others define us. This is our chance to show that recovery is real, and that we’re living proof of it.” 

Wheeler knows the stakes firsthand. She has been in sustained recovery for 35 years after a young adulthood shaped by addiction and early motherhood. Today, she leads Colorado’s first Recovery Community Organization (RCO), a peer-based nonprofit that provides free recovery support services throughout the state. 

“I look at how I live my life today, 35 years later … it’s much different than when I first came into recovery. There is no judgment because (as peers) we’ve lived there,” Wheeler said. “Getting people connected to somebody with lived experience; it’s critical.” 

Every September, Wheeler said, the rally offers a visible reminder of what’s possible through peer support.

“Every year, we have people who literally come off the street and join the walk,” she said. “One year, a man walked up to me while I was on stage. He was overwhelmed and looked really sad. After a few minutes, he just bear-hugged me and started to sob. He said, ‘I don’t want to live this way anymore.’ That’s why we’re in that park. We watch people get into treatment, get into services, be able to change their lives in the moment.” 

For Vanessa James, Advocates for Recovery’s director of community connections, similar bonds formed through the rally were life-changing.

She first attended the event in 2021, four years into her own recovery journey.

“I’m a very proud transgender female, and for me personally in my recovery journey, the two most important things I could have ever imagined were community and connecting within that community,” James said. 

That year, she remembers being struck by the chants echoing across Civic Center Park.

“I will never forget hearing people yelling ‘recover we’ instead of ‘recovery.’ That was the first time I looked around and saw all these people coming together … we didn’t look the same, we came from different backgrounds … but we were all there to support one another, to celebrate, and to recover out loud.” 

James, who recently marked eight years in abstinence-based recovery, will emcee this year’s event. She sees it as a chance to show newcomers that they’re not alone. “Everyone is on a recovery journey from something,” she said. “When we come together and help one another, that’s when the true healing begins.” 

The Rally for Recovery is part festival, part resource fair, and part public demonstration, offering a rare opportunity for people to explore a wide range of services in one place.

More than 175 vendors will line the park this year, providing free food, including hot dogs and coffee through local partnerships, wellness activities such as yoga, reiki, and sound baths, live music, and information about recovery and mental health resources. Denver Health will have its mobile clinic on-site, offering physical and behavioral health support.

Advocates for Recovery emphasizes accessibility: all services at the rally and throughout the year are provided free of charge. 

“We don’t bill insurance,” Wheeler said. “We want there to be no barrier. Anybody can come. We want to really lift up the community of people who are experiencing low income or no income and say to them, ‘You don’t have to sit on a wait list. Come join us. Let us hold your hand and walk with you.’” 

Over the years, Advocates for Recovery Colorado has broadened the rally’s focus beyond substance use, embracing mental health, behavioral health, family support, and youth services.

“We want people to see that recovery isn’t one-size-fits-all,” James said. “It can mean so many different things, and the resources available should reflect that.” 

This year, the event will also feature a creative and uplifting component: the Recovery Card Project, part of the Behavioral Health Administration’s Lift the Label initiative. Local artist Lizzy Truskin contributed a greeting card design titled “New Beginnings,” which aims to offer encouragement and hope for those navigating recovery and serves as a way for loved ones to express support. 

“The idea that people can access these cards digitally for free, and that they bring hope through art, is wonderful,” Truskin said. “My card reads, ‘Trust in the magic of new beginnings.’ I wanted that feeling of positivity and hope for the future to come through.” 

Like the rally itself, the cards are rooted in connection. Truskin described how she approached the project as both a creative challenge and an opportunity to reach people in a meaningful way.

“Art is a way to communicate and connect ourselves to other human beings,” she said. “Through the card, even something small can let someone know they’re seen, that they’re supported.” 

The rally also honors those who make a difference in recovery advocacy. This year, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s director of opioid response, Jamie Feld, will receive the Recovery Advocate of the Year award. Feld has openly shared her own family’s recovery story, which Wheeler says has helped break stigma at the highest levels of state policy. 

Still, Wheeler and James are clear that much work remains and that substance use should be recognized as a public health issue first.

“If we ever begin to treat this as a health condition instead of as a criminal justice issue, we’re going to make huge progress,” Wheeler said.