A World of Wonder Press

PART 5 The Solution Nobody Noticed

By Noelle Dodge | October 20, 2026 | A World of Wonder Press

Awakenings Family Rehabilitation Resort and Spa – A vacation alternative for families in crisis.

Today is the 12 year anniversary of the 16 shots that shook Chicago. When the cameras left, the case was over but life wasn’t for the women who paid the cost that nobody counted.

For Tina Hunter, all the civil rights activists disappeared. The attorneys were all paid and her biggest support system vanished. Her family was now divided and her son was buried. What was left was a number the world repeated for a decade, five million dollars. And, realistically she only held a fraction of that; her son who had become a court case would never be seen at her table again. Her greatest cost nobody counted.
For Tiffany Van Dyke, the day after looked like a courtroom quote she never asked to give: “My life has been a nightmare.” It was a life of four to five hundred dollars a week so she and her daughters could speak to Jason for a few minutes a day. It was a life that looked like daughters growing up on one phone call a day and their hands touching a dirty glass. Their cost nobody counted.

The Vision that Kept Going

In Part 4 of this series it ended after the sentencing. But nobody in this story ever got an “after”. Did anyone even care when the headlines were no longer an opportunity to create personal publicity or public outrage? What would it have looked like if both families had somewhere to go?

That place did exist, in the mind of a third woman completely removed from the case. A student at Judson University plastered on their billboard in 2014 sharing her vision of Awakenings Family Rehabilitation Resort and Spa. The daughter of a well known and respected retired Chicago police officer and ex-wife of a former Cicero Firefighter. A woman who knows the cost nobody counts.

Turning over every stone to launch a dream that was not cooked up in her head but shown to her by God in 2008. The doors didn’t open, not even among first responders. She kept knocking.

She joined the Royal Society on Facebook in 2016 in hopes that a community that spoke of collaboration and cooperation would pull their resources together. Some of those members were celebrities and were influential figures with connections to very powerful people with resources to move that vision into reality.

The reception was cold, some called the vision unrealistic. She kept going.

COVID-19 hit, another opportunity where this woman contacted COPA- The Civilian Office of Police accountability with several times with no interest in an intervention program, she spoke with Illinois State Representatives and sat down with Father Jim Swarthout, a widely recognized priest known for his work as the Florian Chaplain for first responders, including firefighters, police officers, and EMS personnel through his role with the Rosecrance Health Network as a Certified trauma and addictions counselor with a passion to destigmatize mental health.

The vision knocked on several doors. The timing wasn’t right and the resources for these two families, and many like them still had not come. The celebrities and social media groups were aware, the director of student programs at Judson University and all the professors were aware, it was written and spoken about in every paper and thesis. It was part of the application to admission and the reason for her internship in her bachelor’s program, which helped develop the creation of the masters program, “human services administration” degree. She was part of the first graduating cohort from that degree, the future appeared very promising. That student invested 10 years of her own time and money (2016-2026) serving as an ambassador for her professors nonprofit organization, years she is grateful and honored to be a part of. Awakenings still waiting for its turn for the partners meant to build it.

She carries student loan debt from the degree that gave Awakenings its four pillars. The vision is worth the price.

Like these other two women, after graduation day, the photo ops were over, she was no longer on their i90 billboards, and no one was reaching their hand across the table to help her build the dream they said the degree would turn into a reality. The promises and dreams vanished. Like Tina Hunter, everyone got what they wanted from her and when they no longer needed her ideas for their purposes, they were done with her. She took on that debt to build a solution for families. A cost nobody counted.

State Representative Dan Ugaste met with her at his office in 2019 and referred her to Father Jim Swarthout, a leader with deep roots and influence within the first responder community. No resources came from meeting with him but kept the vision moving. He shared what he learned over the years with first responders and gave her a tour of the Rosecrance (Rockford) facility as she shared the vision of Awakenings.

For whatever reasons, the ones with connections and resources; all chose to stay silent with their resources in their pockets; knowing families of first responders and families like Tina Hunter’s were going without when a solution was being hand delivered to their doorsteps. The woman delivering that solution, was me. And it came at a cost nobody ever counted.

An Invitation
Let’s imagine someone actually did invest in the Awakenings vision and made it possible for these families to receive restoration, respite, and rehabilitation. What would that look like?
For Tiffany and the girls, the stay would begin after Jason went to prison, planned and coordinated with Tiffany, when she felt comfortable enough to select a time that wouldn’t interfere with the girls’ schooling, (unless the bullying required a much needed break in their routine) and once a pattern of visitation with Jason was established. Jason himself would not come: a high profile case like that would bring chaos to other guests’ sanctuary. His wife and daughters would come unrecognized and on a week when families of other first responder families were scheduled as well, not guests that can’t relate to their struggles.
They would check in and receive digital wristbands carrying their itinerary, with alarms for their next session. Staff would deliver their things to their three-bedroom suite for them while they toured the property; their car would go to the shop to be checked for a safe ride home. The tour would end with them being escorted to their suite where their things are already waiting for them. For this family, a suite in the main resort would provide them with extra security.

They would have two hours to unwind and shower, relax, or walk the grounds before a restaurant-style dinner in the main dining hall, followed by an optional chapel or nature walk, and at dusk a community bonfire with s’mores and lemonade, hot cider and cocoa with guitar sing-alongs.

Activities as the week unfolds

Equine-assisted therapy or equine-assisted activity and therapy (EAAT) also known as horse therapy for PTSD and autistic disorders, horseback riding lessons, and stable care education, hiking and zip lining with honest teaching about adrenaline, substance use and trauma, gardening education and cooking classes; a spa day would begin with a morning meditation, journal coaching, deep tissue massage and lunch followed by sauna, facial, nails, and hair care.

Mom’s spa day would take place while the girls prepare the evening’s formal dinner. The formal dinner would open with prayer, Tiffany would be seated at a table with other first responder wives who are widowed or single and served by their children. The evening would end with the parents and children having a dance party.

One of the days during the stay, the family would meet together at the community garden for gardening lessons and what is picked from the garden would be taken to an on-site traditional home kitchen for cooking classes; which would be their meal for lunch, together with a family therapist who participated in the entire process that morning and afternoon.

Each family member carries an individual activity plan with a trauma-informed lesson built in: fishing teaches patience, canoeing teaches teamwork, rock climbing teaches how to control a fearful nervous system. A mental health professional stays woven through the week, nature walks, pop-ins and the wristband carries a “can we talk” button, so a struggling guest never has to find the courage to knock on an office door. This makes this program billable through insurance making it affordable to serve families in the child welfare system as well.

Knowing what we know now, the hope would be an Awakenings in every state. For the Van Dykes, this treatment for his family would sit at the Awakenings nearest the prison where Jason was transferred to and attacked.

This would have reduced some trauma for the family and provide them with the opportunity to process that trauma, visit him before, during, or after their stay, and go home carrying local resources for aftercare. And a second stay would be recommended for the entire family after his release in 2022, when the publicity has died down during a week reserved only for first responders and their
families. A place to reconnect in a healthy environment, with guidance on healthy boundaries and honest expectations for what lies ahead. This time, the formal dinner would be a date night: Tiffany and her husband, served by their children. Their children witnessing their parents on a date after a painful separation.

The resort would offer different options; suites, private cabins or the camp ground.

For Tina Hunter: they would have the option of a private cabin or a resort suite and offered all that was mentioned above according to their pre-arrival surveys. Her invitation would be extended to her, her mother, her sister, her children, and her uncle Marvin. The focus would be to receive a safe place to grieve and honor LaQuan away from home with licensed professionals in a non-clinical environment rather than focus on him as a court case with deafening silence. They would be scheduled on a different week from the Van Dykes, a week wholly their own.

Day 1 (not day of check-in) would begin with a spa day. Both generations of women: grandmother, mother, and aunt would begin with a sauna to open the pores and release toxins, unlimited cucumber water, and deep tissue massages, and lunch followed by facials, manicures and pedicures with full makeup and hair care. Each woman would be pampered by trained trauma-informed specialists who would be briefed on each family member they are assigned to, to provide them with emotional, mental, physical and spiritual support. Her child would be cared for in the on-site Montessori and Waldorf (Rudolf Steiner) inspired day-care center.

Her uncle, would participate in a one-on-one session with a therapist over 9 holes of golf followed by lunch, sauna, and deep tissue massage himself.

That evening a restaurant style formal gourmet dinner served to the entire family with icebreakers and conversation starters at the table. Along with biodegradable slips to attach prayers to the biodegradable lanterns they will later release in LaQuan’s honor at dusk.

Day 2 until discharge: the focus would be on individual grief and family reconciliation. Activities would be determined depending on the surveys collected prior to their arrival. Similar to what was mentioned.

Prior to leaving, each family member would write a goodbye letter to LaQuan, place it in a
floating water lily, and release it on the water. No cameras can quote a
water lily.

Discharge Day

At discharge, each family that stays at Awakenings receives an outcomes report based on an arrival interview measured against an exit interview and updates from their stay. Resources in their own community would be provided for follow up care so their experience does not end at the gate.
The founding story Respite. Rehabilitation. Resources, Aftercare, Four things neither family was ever offered by a court, a settlement, or a city.

The four pillars of Awakenings family rehabilitation resort and spa that I have carried since 2008 and designed in my master’s work at Judson University. This series began as an accounting of a price, and of a cost nobody counted. It ends as a door: a place designed so that the next Tiffany and the next Tina, on whichever side of the worst night of their lives they stand are handed rest instead of a microphone, treatment instead of a label, and an after that actually arrives with a solution.
Because people were never meant to break down under the weight of what happened to them. They were meant to break out.

Break OUT Not Down.

BOND Break Out Not Down is a self-discovery (not self-help) book. If you’ve been feeling like your life feels more like being trapped in a bird cage to please those around you, only allowed out when it entertains or pleases them, this is the book for you.

First, discover who you have become to survive the people around you and then re-discover who you have always been. The YOU that needs to be set free from the bird cage that you’ve been trapped in. You don’t need to have a mental break down to get people to hear you. You need to learn how to break out at the exact moment when the window in the room is wide open and you can FLY as fast and as hard as you can.

BOND: Break Out Not Down and my other books “Who is Coming To Save Us” and “It’s Not Their Fault”— live on the Books page: aworldofwonderpress.com/books

References

Sentenced Jan 18, 2019 (81 months); held at Rock Island County Jail in Illinois, kept out of general population.

_• Feb 5, 2019: transferred to FCI Danbury, Connecticut — family and attorneys were told only after the move.

_• Feb 7, 2019: attacked in his cell at Danbury — two days after he arrived. Injuries to his face and head; the Bureau of Prisons confirmed in writing “an assault resulting in minor injuries.”

_• Feb 14, 2019: Tiffany held a Chicago news conference: “I don’t need people to go into his cell and attack him… The next time this could happen, they could kill him. I cannot bury my husband.”