Page 48 - BusinessWest February 17, 2025

Michael J. Dias Foundation board members (from left) Ed and Karen Wilczynski, Mary Ellen Metzger, and Grace Dias.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
And that’s how the foundation’s story begins — but not remotely where
it ends. We’ll tell the story in a linear fashion, with every step along the way demonstrating how the Michael J. Dias Foundation has been, and continues to be, worthy of the title Difference Maker.
Tragedy into Victory
Karen and Ed Wilczynski were among the earliest members of the Michael J. Dias Foundation board. Like Michael, their son, Sean, grew up in a close-knit family in Ludlow.
“We were churchgoing people. He was involved in Boy Scouts and travel sports. We were together all the time as a family. He was very active in school,” Karen said. But life can take some sad, unexpected turns, and Sean’s turned quickly into painkiller addiction.
“Somewhere along the way, he injured his back and mentioned it to a classmate, and the classmate said, ‘oh, I’ve got something that might take the edge off of that.’ We think that’s where it started,” Ed explained. “He was a very talented hockey player, and he had aspirations of going on and doing more with his hockey. He was a driven, committed, very smart kid.”
Karen said society has become much more open to talking about the pervasiveness of drug addiction — and the fact that it doesn’t discriminate.
“We thought, ‘that doesn’t happen in our little community. My children couldn’t possibly know about that world,’” she said. “But it’s everywhere. So our big issue, in trying to help Sean when we recognized he had a problem, was trying to understand the world of recovery and how it works and detoxing and trying to find sober homes and treatments and how to work insurance.”
Thus began a series of sober homes (some effective, many not) and relapses for Sean, who eventually succumbed to addiction and lost his life. But the experience gave the Wilczynskis valuable insight as the foundation developed Michael’s House, especially when it came to life outside it. In short, Sean had
struggled outside those residences.
“We started recognizing gentlemen leaving our
houses oftentimes fell into that same category,” Karen said. “One year just wasn’t enough to get a good, stable job to be able to financially sustain them or catch up
on childcare payments, or reconnect with family and rebuild the connections that had been damaged by some of their drug use. So we recognized, whatever our second home would be, it needed to be a transitional home that would give our guys extra time if they felt they needed more stability in one area of their life.”
An anonymous donor’s generosity in late 2017 paved the way for Sean’s Place, the foundation’s transitional sober home, which opened in early 2019. This residence offers a social model for sobriety, creating a secure environment for residents to support each other in a less-structured environment than Michael’s House.
“We also felt that some of the guys leaving Michael’s House graduated from the program, but the only place they had to go was back into the environment they came from, back into the neighborhoods, with the same old friends who may not be supportive of their new lifestyle, or are still using themselves,” Ed said. “This just provided an extra step for them to set up some goals and continue to work on their recovery, but in a safe environment.”
In 2020, the foundation acquired a third sober- living residence called Christian and Brian’s House, which operates much like Michael’s House, serving as a supportive and nurturing community for men in
the early stages of their recovery. The purchase was made possible through a combination of foundation funds and a generous contribution from the Forest Park Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds in memory of Christian Diaz and Brian Metzger, two compassionate, charismatic friends who lost their lives to addiction.
Mary Ellen Metzger, Brian’s mother and another Michael J. Dias Foundation board member, said her son’s recovery path was frustrating and, in the end, fruitless.
“Our journey took us all over Massachusetts, to a lot of sober homes and
a lot of programs. And, much like Katie found, some places were just big houses where they took your rent. There was no program whatsoever. In our foundation, we follow a 12-step recovery program. It’s clean, it’s sanitary,
it’s safe, it’s a structured environment, and it provides a support system that fosters recovery as people navigate that difficult time in their lives.”
The Forest Park Project has been a great comfort to Mary Ellen. “It said to me that his friends remember him as more than his problem. And all of us in this foundation realize that these young men and women who are cursed with this disease of addiction, they didn’t choose it, and they are much more than their disease.
“The message isn’t that you’re a throwaway, like some sober houses where they don’t care what you do,” she added. “The message is, we know you’ve got it in you to succeed, and we’re going to help you to do that. We try to take people where they are and bring them forward.”
A Home for Women
Michael’s House, Sean’s Place, and Christian and Brian’s House have a combined capacity of 44 men — but no women. That will soon change.
The Michael J. Dias Foundation launched a $500,000 capital campaign last year aimed at funding the creation of a 16-bed sober home for women. So
far, $214,000 has been raised, with generous contributions from individuals, businesses, and community leaders helping to propel the campaign forward. Donations can be made online at www.mdiasfoundation.org/capital-campaign.
The campaign’s chair, Dr. Megan Miller, an assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UMass Chan Medical School – Baystate and an addiction- medicine specialist, is a big believer in the project.
“I am very well-versed in how addiction affects women,” she said. “Gender- specific care is so important, especially in the early stages of recovery. In terms of receiving gender-specific care for substance abuse, women are an underserved population in Western Massachusetts. There is a dire need for a women’s sober home here.”
Ed Wilczynski agrees. “We did a little research last year before we started the capital campaign. We found that, in Western Massachusetts, only 11%
of the beds were female-focused. The rest of the state had 25% of the sober beds focused on females. From a statistical perspective, 32% of those seeking recovery assistance are women. There’s a big disparity with beds available — especially the safe beds that we aspire to. So we decided that was the time to at least start the journey.”
“The message isn’t that you’re a throwaway, like some sober houses where they don’t care what you do. The message is, we know you’ve got it in you to succeed, and we’re going to help you to do that. We try to take people where they are and bring them forward.”
DM30 FEBRUARY 17, 2025
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