Nonprofit name
LEAN on Healing with Healing on Purpose
Year formed
2025, as a fiscally sponsored project of Stara Collaborative
Mission & population served
LEAN on Healing with Healing on Purpose exists in response to the profound and ongoing trauma experienced within our community. Many individuals and families are directly impacted by incarceration, addiction, violence, family instability, and systemic barriers. These experiences often manifest as quiet grief, unresolved pain, and unlabeled anger, frequently misunderstood as attitude or behavioral issues rather than signs of trauma. When left unaddressed, this pain is transferred across generations, shaping family dynamics, relationships and overall community well-being.
Co-Founder Alisa Watkins-Monroe says the foundation of this work is both personal and collective, reflecting her lived experience and years of community engagement. Having once been a child navigating hardship while spending weekends at the YWCA — wishing life felt easier and feeling unheard — it became a driving purpose for her to ensure that children, mothers, and families have spaces where they are listened to and truly seen. This work was born from recognizing how often families move through trauma without support, unintentionally passing pain onto their children instead of being given opportunities to heal it themselves.
Co-Founder Lena Shorter comes to this work as both a parent and a survivor. Through her lived experience, she spent years in survival mode, doing everything possible to provide, without realizing that unresolved trauma had left her emotionally unavailable and, at times, unintentionally harmful. Through her own healing journey, Shorter came to understand how deeply unaddressed trauma was impacting her children and witnessed a powerful shift as she healed: When she got better, her child’s behavior improved as well. This awakening, coupled with her recognition that many families face barriers to accessing clinical services due to financial limitations, stigma, and a lack of culturally responsive spaces, became the turning point and foundation for her work.
Also collaborating with the founders is Alicia Arter-Cunningham, who strengthened the team with her leadership with over 10 years of experience in mental health and program development. Her clinical expertise, combined with lived and educational experience, helped shape our trauma-informed curriculum that is both high-quality and deeply relevant. Arter-Cunningham’s contributions ensure LEAN on Healing with Healing on Purpose is grounded in best practices while remaining accessible, intentional and responsive to the real needs of individuals, families and communities. A critical gap remains for community-centered healing models that are accessible, relational, and grounded in real-life experiences. LEAN on Healing with Healing on Purpose was intentionally created to fill that gap and Arter-Cunningham’s expertise and guidance is critical in closing that gap.
Ongoing conversations with community members, local partners, and program participants consistently affirm this need. There is a shared desire for practical, emotionally grounded spaces where individuals and families can process trauma together, build emotional skills, and restore healthy connections. LEAN on Healing with Healing on Purpose responds by uniting these needs into one collaborative entity: creating safe, supportive environments where healing does not have to be explained, performed, or silenced.
LEAN on Healing with Healing on Purpose provides resource connections, accountability, and consistent emotional support through partnerships with local organizations such as Urban Alliance and Kalamazoo Gospel Mission. Through hands-on work within these spaces, the founders engage directly with individuals and families navigating some of the most impacted and vulnerable circumstances, including housing instability, reentry after incarceration, grief, and ongoing unresolved trauma.
