Children at Family Fun Night in Ossipee

In partnership with Carroll County Coalition for Public Health (C3PH), White Horse Recovery will host a Family Fun Night on Friday, September 4 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at White Horse’s Recovery Center in Ossipee.

“This event is going to be so much fun for the whole family,” said Peer Recovery Coach Gracie Pedersen. “It’s amazing to see how the community connects when neighbors come together in a recovery-friendly setting.”

During the event, held at White Horse — Ossipee (70 Route 16B, Ossipee), there will be games including cornhole, activities, face painting, kid-friendly crafts, and live music, with food from Sober Chef’s Mobile Mad House. White Horse staff will also be on site to offer information about services and share resources. Information about C3PH will also be available.

“C3PH is such an incredible partner to White Horse,” Pedersen said. “We are lucky to have organizations in our community with missions that so closely align with ours.”

Founded in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, White Horse Recovery has grown from a small organization into a leading nonprofit with 28 employees across four locations in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

Overdose Awareness Candlelight Vigil

On Saturday, September 12 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., White Horse Recovery will host its annual Overdose Awareness Candlelight Vigil at the Littleton Community Center. The evening will bring together families, friends, and neighbors to honor and remember those lost to overdose, support those who grieve, and strengthen the community through awareness and hope.

“Our main goal is to remember and recognize the people we’ve lost,” said Erika Collins, North Country Peer Recovery Assistant Director. “This is about raising awareness of how much our State has been impacted by substance use and standing together as a community to say that these lives mattered.”

The vigil, now in its seventh year, will feature several new additions, including a Resource Fair with five confirmed partner organizations: Recovery Friendly Workplace, Blue Heron Neurofeedback and Counseling, Grafton County Alternative Sentencing Program, the Littleton Police Department, and Harbor Care. These organizations will set up tables to share information and connect attendees with services that support recovery, wellness, and healing.

A Memory Wall will again anchor the evening, displaying photos of individuals lost to overdose. Community members are invited to bring a photo of a loved one to add to the wall or to submit one in advance by reaching out to White Horse Recovery’s Littleton office.

“If anybody has someone they want to recognize, we encourage them to bring in a photo so we can add them to the wall,” said Littleton Peer Recovery Coach Caitlyn Hilliard. “That’s how many of the photos on our banners today came to be — families and friends wanting to make sure their loved ones are seen and remembered.”

The evening will also include a candle lighting, music, and space for reflection. Community members who wish to share their own stories — whether as someone in recovery, a survivor of overdose, a family member, or a friend — are invited to speak during the vigil.

Those interested in speaking may contact Hilliard at cait@whitehorseac.com. “It doesn’t have to be someone who lost a family member,” she added. “A lot of people in recovery have experienced overdose in one form or another…Every story matters and every voice helps break the stigma.”

Harbor Care is the event sponsor. Families are welcome, and children’s activities will include rock painting and bubbles. The venue is also handicap accessible.

Collins said she hopes this year’s vigil will continue to build momentum and encourage more of the Littleton community to take part.

“Littleton is a nice little town up in the North Country, and the stigma around substance use is starting to lessen,” she said. “When our community comes together for events like this, it benefits everyone.”

Founded in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, White Horse Recovery has grown from a small organization into a leading nonprofit with 28 employees across four locations in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

Erika Collins, North Country Peer Recovery Assistant Director at White Horse Recovery

What she found instead of judgment was a staff that took her under their wing and showed her that hope was still possible. “I came into this center in 2020 and asked for help,” she said. “The staff took me right under their wing and showed me that the hope was still there—that I could have what they had.”

Six years later, Collins is stepping into leadership, as White Horse Recovery has promoted her to North Country Peer Recovery Assistant Director. In this role, she will help guide recovery center operations, programming, and outreach across Northern Grafton and Coos Counties.

Her rise within White Horse tells the story of what peer recovery makes possible, as she began as a client, became a recovery coach, then a center manager, and now an assistant director. “By the grace of God, and a lot of hard work,” she said. “I am so grateful that I work for an organization that has stood by and let me grow into the leader that I know our communities need.”

According to Executive Director Matthew Plache, her story reflects what makes a Recovery Community Organization (RCO) different. As New Hampshire’s longest operating State supported RCO, White Horse offers peer support delivered by staff with lived experience—people who have walked the road themselves and can meet others where they are, without judgment.

“Erika is proof of everything we believe about recovery,” Plache explained. “She didn’t come to this work through a degree or a classroom. She came to it through lived experience, showing up every day, and building something out of a life she once thought she could only destroy. That’s not just her story—that’s the story of what peer recovery can do.”

The challenges Collins now works to address are steep. The North Country struggles with homelessness, limited mental health resources, transportation gaps, and food insecurity—barriers that make recovery even harder in rural New Hampshire, where reliable public transportation often does not exist.

“Every day, I come to work and help in any way that I can,” she said. “Some days, it is just listening, or helping with a ride, or having a coaching session with a client. We support so many people in their journey, at so many different levels, so I always lead with compassion to figure out a plan that will best help that client, especially in the moment.”

In her new role, Collins plans to strengthen relationships with staff in Berlin, deepen community connections, and bring more people through the doors of White Horse’s centers. She also intends to make youth programming a priority in both Littleton and Berlin.

Her reach already extends well beyond White Horse’s walls. She is one of the founders of the Littleton Winter Shelter, serves on the Tri-County Community Action Program (TCCAP) Board, and sits on the advisory board for Granite United Way’s Opioid Abatement Funding.

She was recently selected to serve on the Governor’s Commission Task Force 2026—and in 2024, she received the “Community Heart Award” from the North Country Health Consortium.

That connectedness is one of her strengths. “I am very connected and involved, and I think that is a strength I bring to my new role,” she said.

Founded in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, White Horse Recovery has grown from a small organization into a leading nonprofit with 28 employees across four locations in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

Police officers serving ice cream at White Horse Recovery’s Cones with Cops event

On Saturday, August 8 at White Horse Recovery’s 2026 Cones with Cops event, the Berlin and Gorham Police Departments traded their law enforcement duties to scoop ice cream and connect with the community they serve.

“Cones with Cops brought together the recovery, law enforcement, and greater Berlin communities. Events like this remind people that they’re not alone, that there are resources and people here who care about them,” said Mitchell Henderson, Peer Recovery Director at White Horse Recovery. “When people feel welcomed and supported, that’s when change becomes possible.”

He said the event, which took place at Heritage Park in Berlin, was a “resounding success,” as more than 100 people were in attendance, while more than a dozen partnering agencies set up tables to share information and play games. These organizations included the Androscoggin Food Coop, the Berlin Community Prevention Coalition, the Berlin Police Department, Blue Heron Neurofeedback, The Community Builders Hub, Coos County Family Health, The Doorway, the Family Resource Center, the Gorham Police Department, North Country Health Consortium, North Country Peer Support, Tri County CAP, and YLTA.

Police officers served ice cream donated by The Bethel Sugar Shack and River’s Edge Takeout, while US Foods provided burgers and hot dogs. 2026 Cones with Cops sponsors included Coos County Family Health, The Bethel Sugar Shack, River’s Edge Takeout, US Foods, The Community Builders Hub, Dollar General, and Shaws. Raffle donors included Northeast ATV Rentals, Omni Mount Washington, Dalton Motor Sports, Gold House of Pizza, and others.

“The turnout was great,” added Henderson. “We look forward to continuing to build relationships in the communities we serve.”

Founded in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, White Horse Recovery has grown from a small organization into a leading nonprofit with 28 employees across four locations in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

Cheryle Pacapelli and her dog Nugget

“I say it was divine intervention,” Pacapelli said of the path that led her into the addiction recovery field.

That path began with loss, as she spent years in telecommunications until her company collapsed after the September 11 attacks destroyed its New York City equipment. No work existed in the field. She then met someone in a recovery house who offered a suggestion.

“I had a house, good credit, and I was able to get a mortgage,” she said. “I bought my first recovery house.”

Within five months, she ran 26 beds of recovery housing. “These things needed to happen for me to end up opening a recovery house and ultimately to end up in New Hampshire building a network of recovery centers,” she said.

Pacapelli owned and operated Stepping Stone House in Connecticut for 21 years, serving men transitioning from incarceration or treatment. She helped launch the National Alliance for Recovery Residences and trained house owners on budgets, rules, and operating standards from 2004 to 2012.

She was an early architect of peer recovery support when the work had no formal name. “We were just getting recovery out of the basement of a church to show that people do recover,” she said. While there, she helped design two services still used across the country, telephone recovery support and peer recovery coaching, through The Art & Science of Peer-Assisted Recovery.

When she arrived in New Hampshire, the state had no Recovery Community Organizations. She set out to find people ready to open recovery centers during the early years of the opioid epidemic. “No one understood what it was and how it was affecting people,” she said.

Initially, she worked with six organizations, including White Horse Recovery, providing seed money to help them launch. As of June 2026, there are 21 recovery centers operating across New Hampshire, including four operated by White Horse Recovery located in Center Ossipee, N Conway, Berlin and Littleton. Because all centers share one data system, New Hampshire holds some of the strongest recovery data in the country.

Her personal values shaped the work. “I have my pathway to recovery, and not everyone does the same thing I do, but that doesn’t mean they can’t recover their own way,” said Pacapelli, who noted how the field has evolved. “When I entered recovery in 1989, a musician who drank while performing would have been told to give up the guitar. Today, the approach asks what it would look like for them not to drink while playing – letting people be their authentic selves.”

For the past decade, Pacapelli served as Project Director for the Peer Recovery Support Services Facilitating Organization at Harbor Care in Nashua, the main funder of the grant supporting recovery services statewide.

“Cheryle has shaped the peer recovery movement in New Hampshire from the ground up,” said White Horse Recovery Executive Director Matthew Plache. “Her decades of lived experience and her work training the coaches who walk alongside people every day make her an invaluable asset to our community.”

The 2026 Annual Freedom Event, titled “An Evening of Hope, Community, and Support,” will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Center Ossipee. The evening will also feature firsthand stories from individuals served by White Horse Recovery and a silent auction.

Tickets are $50 per person, with proceeds supporting behavioral health and addiction treatment services across Coos, Carroll, and Grafton counties. White Horse Recovery’s 2026 Annual Freedom Event is sponsored by Eastern Propane, Cobalt Construction Management, and Tony Fallon Architecture.

Founded in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, White Horse Recovery has grown from a small organization into a leading nonprofit with 28 employees across four locations in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.