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There will be a meeting of the Kellys this afternoon as Williamsport native and Loyalsock Township High School graduate Kelly Kerans Lyndgaard is featured as a guest on "The Kelly Clarkson Show."
Lyndgaard, who is the founder and CEO of Unshattered, a nonprofit social enterprise, is going to be on today's show to talk about the business and the work they do.
"Our mission is to end the addiction cycle. And we do that by employing women that are in recovery to close the gap between sobriety and long term success," Lyndgaard shared recently.
The invitation from Clarkson's show came when a former college intern at the nonprofit, who is now a producer at the show, suggested it.
"She had recommended us after falling in love with Unshattered after she had worked for us during her time at Marist (College)," Lyndgaard said.
When the invitation came Lyndgaard said everyone was very excited about it.
"This is a huge opportunity to share the mission of Unshattered to end the addiction relapse cycle and to showcase our work and that it is possible for women to thrive in recovery and to be doing incredible things both personally and professionally. So I was really thrilled that Kelly Clarkson was willing to share us with her audience and give us the platform to reach even more people with the work of Unshattered," she said.
Unshattered was founded by Lyndgaard over seven years ago because as she said, "I used to be the type of person who thought that people that were struggling with addiction just needed to get their act together, be more responsible or get a job until I actually met someone in recovery and began to understand that addiction is the story of pain, not a story of substance."
She then got involved with a local recovery program in New York state, where she now lives, but realized that at the end of the residential part of the program many women were still lacking job skills.
"Maybe they didn't have a chance to get an education. Most importantly, they don't have a safe community to return to. And that means they go back to where they were previously using with little support or resources. That often leads to a relapse, and relapse often leads to death," she said.
"I just was seeing women that I knew were talented and capable and really just desired to be sober, relapse and die. And I couldn't figure out who was solving that problem. So, I left my career to focus on paving that road between sobriety and long-term success," she said.
The women at Unshattered take upcycled, reclaimed materials, like retired military uniforms, upcycled leather from seats on Southwest Airlines planes and the original upholstery from a 1955 Mercedes Benz to then create handbags.
In addition, personal and professional developments are incorporated in the paid hours of the women so that they're getting one-on-one coaching and development and professional educational opportunities. Some of those opportunities include working with the woman who was vice president of E-commerce for L'Oreal brands; the vice president of design for Ralph Lauren, the director of the Marist fashion program, one of the top fashion schools in the world; and lots of people from industry in order to expose them to what professional skills exist and opportunities that they can grow into.
"It's really important to us to be using industry language, job titles, things that help build economic growth for women in the future because we really believe that that is a key component to people's ability to remain sober," she said.
"They're also getting therapeutic counseling, and all of the support that they need to not just have a job, but to build career pathways, build social capital and thrive in recovery," Lyndgaard said.
During the time that they have been in business, Unshattered has only seen one relapse.
Until May of this year, Unshattered was housed in a small building in Hopewell Junction. Then came the opportunity to move into a much larger facility and with that the chance to grow their team beyond the 10 women employed there. Lyndgaard shared that in the next "handful of years" they hope to be able to employ 50 people at the new site.
The women can remain employed at Unshattered for as long as they want or they can move on to other opportunities. The average tenure is two years, although some have been there as long as five years.
This is not the first time that Lyndgaard and Unshattered have received national attention. They have been featured on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, both ABC and CBS have done prior stories on them and they were recognized at the White House for their creative and effective work in ending the opioid crisis.
Because they are a nonprofit, every dollar that is spent on a product and every dollar that is donated stays there to help in achieving the mission of ending the addiction relapse cycle, Lyndgaard said.
This episode of the Kelly Clarkson Show airs today at 3 p.m. locally.
"People should watch the episode online to see what exciting things happen for Unshattered and for the audience. And we would really love to have people shop or donate and become what we call an ambassador of possibility which is somebody who believes in what is possible for women on the other side of addiction," Lyndgaard added.