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City on a Hill offers refuge for women seeking recovery from substance abuse

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Perhaps there is nowhere as welcoming as an old farmhouse, so it’s only appropriate that a women’s drug and alcohol treatment center in western Kansas would be located in one.

As The Hutch Newsreports, City on A hill, an eight-bed residential treatment center, is located on a dirt road 15 miles west of Scott City.

Christopher and Tammy Lund founded the center and named it after a Bible verse in Matthew 5:14: “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Lund said the location is perfect for those seeking recovery from substance because it provides a safe haven from distractions and reminders of their former lives. The women who reside there range in age from 18 to over 60. 

Tammy Lund told The Hutch News that the women who stay at the center help with the chickens and vegetable garden – and help bottle-feed baby calves the Lunds buy - during their 28-day stay there.

Otherwise, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., the women are in class covering topics such as domestic violence education and relapse prevention and there is a licensed substance and addiction counselor on staff, who takes the women who need counseling to sessions at Compass Behavioral Health. 

City on a Hill offers faith-based recovery. Tammy Lund is a certified counselor who dreamed of opening such a center for women in western Kansas, where there was a real need for it.

Christopher actually sings to raise money for the center and returned to school to study grant writing, graduating from Fort Hays State University in 2014, and currently working on his master’s degree in human services.

According to The Hutch News, City on a Hill incorporated in 2008 in Scott County, leasing a camp as a treatment center. The farmhouse, located near Marienthal, became available in 2009 and the Lunds raised just over $100,000 from 300 churches in western Kansas, Colorado and Oklahoma to purchase it.

Since then, around 900 women have undergone treatment there.

City on a Hill’s designation as a women’s program in 2010 qualified it for federal funding. The rest comes from 13 western Kansas counties, from alcohol tax.

The Lunds also operate a 20-bed facility for men, women and children in Liberal in 2015 and a similar center for women in Sedan in 2016.