One in a series of articles focusing on the history of David Lawrence Centers, which celebrates its 50^th anniversary in 2018.

When the Collier County Mental Health Clinic, now the David Lawrence Centers, was established in 1968, it desperately needed a few things—like a place to practice, and a psychologist to do the work.

Thus began the long and time-consuming task of documenting the need for mental health services to substantiate the requests for funding. After many months of providing this documentation, a local Naples resident, Donald Stoneburner, donated a small building for the first offices — a gesture that proved to the community the clinic meant business.

But they still needed a doctor and, more importantly, funding. The state did not want to write a check, saying that Collier County should step up to the plate first. County commissioners thought the state should commit first.

Much negotiation took place, and the school board, the county commission, and State Health and Rehabilitation Services came together to provide the important startup funds.

To the joy of all those who had hoped for such services to get started, the county commissioners were all 100 per cent for the funding, despite a time when their views on many issues differed. The county commissioners with such vision were A.C. Hancock, Cliff Wenzel, Les Whitaker, Chairman,Pappy Moore and Jack Kurke.

Once Collier County made its commitment, the state followed suit and agreed to fund the clinic as well. The Collier County Mental Health Clinic opened its doors on October 10, 1969, with three staff members, including a psychiatrist. In time, private donors began supporting the clinic, now known as David Lawrence Centers . The process that led to funding the organization and the continued funding by the state and private donors is a testament to the positive change that happens when a community comes together.

Those private donors include generous friends like you. Thank you for your support!

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It’s been 47 years since Polly Keller was dubbed “The First Lady of Mental Health” by the Collier County Mental Health Clinic Board of Directors, and in many ways, that title is still spot-on.

Without Keller’s efforts in the 1960s, David Lawrence Centers might not be here today. In 1968, she helped found the Collier County Mental Health Clinic, later renamed David Lawrence Centers . In 1976, she formed the Foundation for Mental Health Inc. (now the David Lawrence Foundation) to spearhead fundraising for the clinic, and she has since helped raise millions of dollars.

As the daughter of a psychiatrist who ran a state mental hospital in Nebraska, Keller was exposed from a very young age to those struggling with mental illness. Her psychiatrist father, who worked at the hospital, was constantly crusading for more mental health funding, a crusade Polly took on as she grew into an adult.

“Early on, I developed an empathy and compassion for the patients I came to know so well,” says Keller, now 82. “Delivering quality mental health services to those in need, regardless of their ability to pay, has been a primary concern all my life.”

She is quick to note that Florida ranks 49^th nationally in spending per capita for mental health expenses. “I’ve seen the need to supplement inadequate government funding. And I’ve seen the need to continue developing quality mental health services and programs to meet the needs of a growing population. That’s why we fundraise.”

Keller’s late husband, architect Walter Keller, designed the Center’s Golden Gate campus. Her son Shaun Kelly, CPA, served on the DLC Board for decades, and her other son, local attorney Charles Kelly, Jr., has been a dedicated supporter for years.

Keller has also served on the boards of the Greater Naples Civic Association, Naples Women’s Club, Cooper Institute for Advanced Study of Medicine and Humanities, and the International Foundation for the Preservation of the Family.

She was recently named one of the “Faces of Philanthropy” by the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. Keller also won the prestigious 1987 Naples Daily News Outstanding Citizen Award, and in 2004 was presented with the David Lawrence Centers & Foundation Beautiful Heart Award.

“David Lawrence Centers is truly a wonderful resource for this community,” says Keller. “It has been my joy and privilege to have been a volunteer with them all these years.”

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David Lawrence Centers wasn’t always known by that name. Founded as the Collier County Mental Health Clinic in 1968, it didn’t take on its current name till the 1980s.

So who was David Lawrence? He was a young man who lost his life after a struggle with mental illness and addiction. His full name was David Lawrence Bathey, and his parents, Doug and Mercy Bathey, gave $200,000 to the clinic to buy a 10-acre parcel of land for a new campus on Golden Gate Parkway.

Not long after that, the clinic changed its name to David Lawrence Centers in honor of the Batheys’ generosity and David’s legacy.

“We consider David Lawrence Centers a member of our family,” Dick Bathey, David’s brother once said. “It makes our David’s loss less burdensome knowing that thousands of people have been treated and helped there. Our experience has been very rewarding and a great source of hope, pride, and fulfillment.”

The Bathey family, even in their passing, continue to support the work of the Center. Through a generous planned gift, the Bathey family and their estate have helped fund a variety of capital expansion projects and programs. Their support remains critical in helping to meet the mental health and substance use needs of Collier County.

Today, the Center now sits on Bathey Lane, after a new access road was installed in the front of the main campus property. In addition, a statue, bench and garden were erected in their family’s honor.

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If you’ve visited David Lawrence Centers, you’ve no doubt seen the huge banyan tree in the front parking lot. You can’t miss it. Enormous and sprawling, the banyan is, in many ways, the physical and spiritual centerpiece of the facility.

Physical, because of its can’t-miss placement. But spiritual too, in a way, because the old tree, with its cooling shade and the inviting embrace of its branches, seems to say, “Come, lay your burdens down, right here at my feet.”

And how many “feet” there are! A banyan tree grows outward as much as upward. As its limbs reach out in all directions, new roots grow downward from the limbs until they touch the ground, digging into the dirt to form new “trunks” all around, each holding up the vast limbs above.

The DLC banyan was planted in the late 1980s. At about the same time, DLC included a residential program for children aged 6-17, housed in a building called the Banyan Pavilion. When they graduated, each was given a coin — with a picture of a banyan tree on one side, and the Serenity Prayer on the other:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

The banyan was planted by a master gardener who also taught the children how to grow things, a hands-on illustration for seeing how something could come from almost nothing, and, in time and with cultivation, could develop into something beautiful. The gardener taught the children how the new roots holding up the limbs were like friends, family, and community holding one another up in troubling times.

DLC’s landmark tree was almost lost in 2004, when Hurricane Charley swept through and caused great damage. Some suggested removing the tree altogether, but others voted to keep it, care for it, and nurture it back to health and wellness — an apt metaphor for what happens at David Lawrence Centers every day.

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