Roberts New Director Of Cookeville Rescue Mission

Will Roberts hired as the new Executive Director at the Cookeville Rescue Mission after some 45 years working in addiction recovery.

Roberts served on the Board of Directors and said his intimate knowledge of the organization and its staff gives him a head start in his new position. He said his first goal as director is to create unity in the community to ensure continuity of care.

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” Roberts said. “We would like to, what’s working for others, we want to utilize those techniques, and then we’ve got some great ideas that we’re going to be bringing on board. We’re excited about the future. We feel like we can grow the Mission and increase the effectiveness of it.”

Roberts said he struggled with addiction his whole life before getting sober in 1989 and beginning his work in addiction service just a year later. He said this would be his first experience in working with mass homelessness, but he is excited for the new challenge.

“We really would like to have as much unity as possible and work with the other organizations in town who have the same idea as we do about trying to reach out to the community,” Roberts said. “We want to work in concert with everybody that wants to work with us, and I think that we’ll do a whole lot better together. There’s a synergistic effect when everybody gets together and pulls together, and that’s our goal.”

He said there will be an adjustment period ahead of him as he gets onto solid footing in his new role, but sharing the very same goals as the rest of the staff will help ease that transition. He said the staff at the mission has been excellent for years and he hopes to augment that rather than step in and implement major changes.

“My heart has really just been a heart for service and trying to reach out to people in the community that are struggling,” Roberts said.