Martha’s Vineyard Community Services touches a wide swath of Islanders. A teenager experiencing a mental health crisis walks to the intervention center across the street from the regional high school. A grandfather finds advice about raising his grandchild at a regular discussion group. A person in recovery from an opiate addiction receives medication with support from a counselor. A child has her teeth cleaned at a free dental clinic.

Long the primary health and human services provider on the Island, Community Services has seen significant growth in recent years. Since 2016, the organization has opened an intervention center for people experiencing mental and substance use crises, piloted a new detox program, expanded trauma support services for children and secured a bid to open a recovery support center with the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, among other new ventures.

“The thing that drives this organization the most is the desire to meet the community need,” said executive director Julie Fay this week. “Six thousand Islanders come through our doors [each year] seeking one kind of services or another.”

Now leaders are planning a major campus expansion to keep up with their programming.

The annual Possible Dreams auction, the principal yearly fundraiser for Community Services, will take place this Sunday at the Tilton Farm in Chilmark. Packages up for auction will include an evening at the Seth Meyers late night show, a yacht cruise to Nantucket and a chance to make treats with the chocolatiers at Chilmark Chocolates.

Ms. Fay said funds from the auction, which raised about $400,000 last year, will go toward supporting regular programming and services. The annual operating budget currently totals $9.2 million, and with the addition of new programs and staff, there has been a 45 per cent growth in operating capital in the last six years, she said.

As services have expanded, Ms. Fay said they have outgrown their three-acre campus on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road next to the YMCA, where the organization has been located since the 1980s. The existing early childhood center, for example, has one bathroom for more than 40 children. Eight recovery coaches share a single office in another part of the campus.

Last year, the regional high school agreed to lease an additional 1.9 acres to Community Services for a major expansion and overhaul. The first phase will involve building a new 10,000-square-foot early childhood center. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the Oak Bluffs planning board have both approved the project, which is expected to break ground in October. Altogether the expansion plan envisions a footprint increase of 58 per cent, with full-time staff expected to grow from 59 to 79, according to Martha’s Vineyard Commission documents.

“We want a campus that is really accessible, that is also energy efficient, that also reflects the commitment of our staff and our volunteers and really is a healing environment,” Ms. Fay said. A capital campaign is already underway; the first phase of the project is expected to cost some $7 million.

As the effects of the national opioid crisis have continued to buffet the Island, Community Services has worked to increase available supports. Last spring, it became one of eight organizations statewide to secure a contract from the Department of Public Health to open a recovery support center. The facility, called the Red House, is located next to the hospital and is expected to open this fall or early winter after renovations are completed. The center will offer career services and community space for people in recovery and their families.

The Island Intervention Center, an urgent care facility for mental health and substance use crises, opened two years ago and seeks to help people de-escalate before they wind up in the emergency room. Early numbers have shown a decrease in crisis-related emergency room visits since the center opened. All services at the intervention center are offered for free.

“We’ve seen tremendous success in terms of the new services available,” Ms. Fay said.

Community Services also began offering the opiate use disorder medication Suboxone two years ago in addition to Naltrexone, which is used to treat both alcohol and opiate use disorders, through their medication assisted treatment (MAT) program. The clinic accepts insurance for the medications, making them available to a wider group of Islanders. The New Paths recovery program offers group support sessions five times per week for people in recovery.

Connect to End Violence, the arm of the organization that supports people who have experienced sexual assault and domestic violence, served 334 survivors in fiscal year 2018. Connect offers counseling, supervised visitation and court advocacy.

And while often a resource for people in moments of acute need, Community Services is not just engaged in crisis intervention. More than 870 children were served by the early education and care center in fiscal year 2018. The Family Support Center offers free play groups and consultations. The Daybreak Clubhouse offers a daytime refuge for people with mental illness. Other programs educate students in Island schools about healthy relationships, and public demonstrations like the Sexual Violence Awareness Walk engaged the community about social issues.

Ms. Fay said the work is hardly done.

“The housing crisis on the Island and growing food insecurity, these are all social pressures that exist that really impact the quality of life on the Island,” she said. “And Community Services exists to respond to those needs.”

The Possible Dreams Auction will take place from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 28 at the Tilton Farm on 52 Middle Road in West Tisbury. Tickets and an online auction are at mvcommunityservices.org/possibledreams.