Nonprofit's Focus on Fitness a Draw For Those in Need - The Ledger

<p>BARTOW — Gabrielle Hart is the picture of health.</p><p>Buff from training for mixed martial arts competition, you might never guess that the 32-year-old works in a doughnut shop and has battled addictions to food and drugs most of her life.</p><p>Hart's new diet and fitness regimen works like no other, she said, after failing repeated attempts over the years to rein in her compulsions. </p><p>"I'm getting a lot stronger," she said during a recent workout at her home away from home — Leland Family Ministries.</p><p>As the name implies, the Bartow nonprofit helps people confront addictions through a spectrum of faith-based programs, spiritual counseling and group therapy, using some of the same principles of 12-step organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.</p><p>As with those programs, Leland's services are free and incorporate a community service component by leading group activities such as cleaning and painting homes of the poor and elderly.</p><p>But Leland's emphasis on fitness, nutrition and health is a powerful draw for people like Hart, a resident of Hope Now Women's Transition Center in Bartow, a recovery program for substance abuse addictions.</p><p>In lieu of sitting in jail, Hart was accepted into Hope Now as part of a probation plan that includes participation in the programs offered by Leland Family Ministries.</p><p>There she attends classes taught by dietetic and nutrition students from Keiser University. Some of the meetings, dubbed "lunch and learn" events, feature guest speakers.</p><p>The on-site fitness center offers exercise instruction.</p><p>"I've learned all about diet," Hart said. "I've cut back on fatty food and I eat lots more fruits."</p><p>Susan Douglas, 50, of Bartow, tells a similar story, having recently returned to Leland because of a relapse that found her back on methamphetamine.</p><p>Divorced and the mother of two grown children, she is hopeful of kicking her habit once and for all.</p><p>While working up a sweat in the gym, Douglas said she finds Leland's new focus on health and exercise to be transforming.</p><p>"I've incorporated more fruits and vegetables and less carbs (in my diet)," she said. "So far I've lost 30 pounds."</p><p>While many of Leland's participants are enrolled through Polk County's probation program and drug court, all of its services are free and open to the general public. </p><p>As a nonprofit charity with an annual budget of $250,000, Leland depends on donations, 45 percent of which come from a single donor by way of a private, anonymous foundation. It also receives $50,000 per year from the county government.</p><p>Leland's push to fight obesity through diet, fitness, education, prayer and Bible study incorporates such popular, weight-loss programs as "Lose it For Life," an 11-week course that includes a study guide written by Steve Arterburn and Linda Mintle, and Jimmy Pena's "PrayFit."</p><p>People fighting addictive behavior often turn to food as a substitute, said Libbie Combee, founder and president of Leland Family Ministries.</p><p>"We get them sober so now they're eating all the time," she said.</p><p>A reformed methamphetamine addict, Combee named her agency for her son, Jason Leland, who served jail time for his addiction to the same drug. He now serves as physical trainer and coach at the agency's Recovery Resource Center, 780 W Main St., Bartow.</p><p>The program does more than talk about good nutrition: It introduces fresh fruit and produce at weekly lunch meetings. Much of the food is grown by volunteers who tend the agency's garden, which has moved to a plot at First Baptist Church of Eagle Lake.</p><p>Turnips, collard greens, squash and other fall vegetables also will be included in food boxes that Combee and her staff provide to needy families in the surrounding neighborhoods.</p><p>Expansion hopes</p><p>Combee said she hopes to raise as much as $200,000 to expand the health and wellness side to her programs by purchasing additional property to house a larger exercise room and an industrial kitchen for cooking instruction.</p><p>That would enable Combee to help more people like Dale Garrett, 51, who is recovering from burns received while manufacturing methamphetamine in Iowa.</p><p>"I blew myself up," said Garrett, who had been sentenced to 10 years in an Iowa state prison but was released after serving one year because of Combee's intervention.</p><p>Garrett said relatives in Lakeland who learned of the Leland program through church circles asked Combee to petition Iowa parole officials.</p><p>"Libbie wrote the Parole Board up there, and explained the treatment (she provides)," said Garrett, who receives physical therapy and counseling at the Bartow center. "That's the only reason I got paroled. ... It's really helped a lot. Instead of doing all the bad stuff, I'm replacing it with the gym."</p>