About Lighthouse Beginnings
Our mission is to provide continued support for individuals exploring recovery by honoring all pathways to recovery and meeting people where they are.
Lighthouse Beginnings is a peer-led Recovery Community Organization based in Baxter, Minnesota, serving individuals across Crow Wing, Cass, Morrison, Todd, and Aitkin Counties. Each year, Lighthouse supports approximately 400 people who may be navigating recovery, mental health challenges, housing instability, justice-system involvement, unemployment, transportation barriers, and other obstacles that can make it difficult to move forward.
Through peer support, housing, employment assistance, transportation, reentry services, basic needs, and community connection, Lighthouse helps people build stability, independence, purpose, and long-term recovery.
Our Services
Lighthouse Beginnings provides peer-led support for people navigating recovery, mental health challenges, housing instability, reentry, employment barriers, and other life transitions. Services include peer support, housing assistance, employment help, transportation, benefits navigation, wellness activities, and community connection.
Drop-In Center
Our Baxter Drop-In Center provides a welcoming, nonclinical space where people can access support, basic needs, showers, laundry, computers, telehealth, groups, housing and employment resources, and practical help from peers who understand recovery firsthand.
Our Partners
Lighthouse works with community partners across Central Minnesota, including county agencies, courts, corrections, healthcare providers, treatment programs, employers, law enforcement, housing organizations, and faith communities. These partnerships help connect people to the right services and reduce barriers between systems.
Service Area
Based in Baxter, Minnesota, Lighthouse Beginnings serves individuals across Crow Wing, Cass, Morrison, Todd, and Aitkin Counties. Our reach extends beyond the campus through transportation, outreach, community partnerships, jail-based peer support, and connections to resources throughout the region.
Rooted in Community
Lighthouse Beginnings serves communities across Central Minnesota from our home base in Baxter.
We work closely with local agencies, healthcare providers, courts, treatment programs, employers, housing organizations, and other community partners to help people connect with the support they need.
Built by People Who Understand Recovery
Lighthouse Beginnings is peer-led and shaped by lived experience. Our team understands that recovery looks different for everyone and that people often need support in more than one area of life.
We meet people where they are and help them take the next step toward stability, connection, and recovery.
Recovery Supported & Celebrated
Our History
The Story of Lighthouse Beginnings
In 2018, Scott and Dawn Adkisson envisioned a nonprofit that could help close gaps within the recovery community by providing compassionate, practical support grounded in lived experience.
That vision grew through conversations, listening sessions, meetings, and community dinners with people in recovery, families, local leaders, and community partners. In 2020, Lighthouse Beginnings officially became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
From the beginning, Lighthouse has been peer-led and shaped by people who understand recovery firsthand. The organization began providing services in 2022 and now supports approximately 400 individuals each year across Crow Wing, Cass, Morrison, Todd, and Aitkin Counties.
From its 15,600-square-foot campus in Baxter, Minnesota, Lighthouse provides peer support, mental health recovery services, recovery and supportive housing, employment assistance, transportation, reentry support, basic needs, community programming, and a peer-supported Drop-In Center.
What began as an idea around a table has grown into a community where people can find connection, support, and opportunities to rebuild their lives.