Our mission is to enhance health for all individuals facing all forms of mental health issues, addiction, depression, and other life challenges by offering free group exercise, support meetings, nutritional coaching, mental health counseling, and gym memberships (subsidized at some locations).
Our vision is to be recognized and acknowledged as a community of support and a safe space for people to be themselves, speak their minds, and recover. As a non-profit organization, Move to Heal seeks to make recovery possible by providing these free and subsidized services. MTH partners with gyms to provide a comfortable and welcoming environment with fitness classes (and coaching), followed by non-denominational group support and recovery meetings. We encourage our members to bond physically through workouts, and on an emotional level at meetings. At Move to Heal - stigma evaporates, and EVERYONE is welcome!
Move to Heal was founded in May 2021 but its story began years before, in 2014, when licensed clinical therapist Alexandria Hershman studied how combining exercise with mental health counseling significantly improved the lives of those suffering from depression, anxiety, and addiction. The holistic mind-body connection led to long-term benefits.
In 2021, her father Ethan Hershman, a gym owner who has been in recovery for nearly 30 years, experienced an exercise class followed by a group support meeting. He was hooked. He realized he was living proof that Alexandria’s research findings were true. While his friends in AA had experienced relapses, Ethan’s focus on exercise, nutrition, and counseling were the reason for his successful long-term recovery.
It occurred to Ethan that most people don’t have the means to get therapy, nutritional counseling, and also join a gym to get physically healthy again. But as a gym owner, Ethan had the means to provide access.
He conferred with his daughter Alexandria and his partner at the gym Colleen Delaney, who had solved her own medical issues, including Crohn’s disease, with a healthy diet. The three founded Move to Heal with a goal of helping those with mental health issues, depression, addiction, eating disorders, PTSD, abuse, or any life trauma, to achieve wellness and long-term recovery.
Move to Heal serves over 500 people a week in gyms across Connecticut, and in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Participants receive free exercise classes, mental health counseling, nutritional counseling, and gym memberships (subsidized at some locations). Best of all, they build and foster a community of support that many participants have called “lifesaving.”
The officers, directors, committee members, employees, and persons served by this organization shall be selected entirely on a nondiscriminatory basis with respect to age, sex, race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or any other category or status protected by law. It is the policy of Move to Heal not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, ancestry, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical disability, veteran’s status, political service or affiliation, color, religion, national origin, or any other category or status protected by law.
