By Phil Drake for the Independent Record.
An idea that sprouted from a kitchen-table meeting of parents in Anaconda who were seeking opportunities for their children with special needs in the 1970s has blossomed into a program a half-century later that helps thousands of Montanans lead better lives.
AWARE is celebrating its 50th anniversary on April 30, with a gala set for May 1 at The Front Street Station in Butte.
The nonprofit offers community-based support for people with mental health and/or developmental disabilities and families with children ages 0 to 8.
In its annual report for 2025, AWARE said it helped 5,772 people and served all 56 of Montana’s counties. The organization has outpatient offices in Anaconda, where its main office is located, Belgrade, Billings, Butte, Great Falls, Hamilton, Helena, Kalispell, Libby and Missoula.
Matt Bugni, chief executive officer, is quick to tag AWARE’s success to a “thoughtful” and “community-minded” board of directors and a hardworking staff of nearly 1,000, citing his team’s resilience and ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
“For years, AWARE has stepped up where others couldn’t to ensure services continue in communities across Montana,” Bugni said in the report.
A 2024 filing with the Internal Revenue Service shows AWARE had about $50 million in revenues and expenses. But in 2025, it acquired two new programs, which grew its budget to about $70 million “with narrow but healthy margins,” a spokeswoman said.
According to AWARE’s 2025 annual report, 90% of its services are in community care and outpatient treatment. Residential care and early childhood care make up another 4% each, and 2% of services are listed as other care or a combination.
AWARE also works with 40 schools, including 48 Comprehensive School and Community Treatment teams helping 783 students.
Services include programs that help people experiencing homelessness. AWARE operates nearly 50 group homes, Bugni said, providing shelter for people with mental illness, traumatic brain injuries, developmental disabilities and children with serious emotional disturbances. It also offers other mental health treatments, therapy, case management, crisis response, Early Head Start and other treatments, among other services.
“Not only does it save funding, it’s more humane. It’s active treatment,” Bugni said in a recent interview in AWARE’s office on Last Chance Gulch in Helena. “We help people live as independently as possible, connections in their community. It’s hard to do if you’re removed from your home and living in a hospital or institutionalized. That’s difficult. So I think keeping people closer to home, closest to their family and friends, is something that we try to do.”
AWARE expands as nonprofits face headwinds
The 50-year anniversary celebration comes as many nonprofits are struggling with funding, some due to cuts by the federal government, Bugni noted. He said in the past two years he has been approached by five nonprofits asking to be under the AWARE umbrella.
In 2025, two organizations were acquired by AWARE: Whitehall-based Liberty Place and the Western Montana Health Center in Missoula, which helps with comprehensive mental health disability and early intervention support.
Bugni said government needs well-functioning and sustainable nonprofits in order to deliver care to Montana’s communities. Liberty Place, for instance, offers intensive traumatic brain injury treatments, one of several reasons Bugni said he liked the organization.
“The way that they treat people with disabilities is normal. It’s beautiful,” said Bugni, who joined AWARE in 2011 and became its CEO in 2018.
He said they help clients with their own decision-making to live independently.
“So it really is a great mission fit for us with Liberty Place, and we serve a lot of people with undiagnosed TBI in our network across the state, so … the idea is to braid that TBI treatment together with what AWARE does across the state.”
The Western Montana Mental Health Center, which serves much of western Montana with a wide range of disability, mental health and early intervention support, approached AWARE not long after Liberty Place.
Bugni said the two organizations blend well with AWARE’s mission.
In 2016, AWARE opened five group homes in Butte and Great Falls to serve some remaining residents after the Montana Developmental Center in Boulder closed.
“They are a really critical resource for Montana in so many different ways,” said Matt Kuntz, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Montana. He said the developmental disability and mental health care AWARE provides covers treatments other agencies cannot offer.
Kuntz said AWARE taking on Western Montana Health Center was “a real gift to the state.”
Despite successes and large footprint in the Treasure State, Bugni said that AWARE is not as well known as some other nonprofits.
“We have been a quiet partner of Montana for 50 years,” he said. “I think the people that have experienced our care, because they had a kid with a disability or a relative, or have interacted with our services, definitely know us. But for the majority of Montana’s population, no. I don’t think the name of AWARE is at the tip of people’s tongue.”
But he said that is improving year by year, as AWARE educates the public about the services it delivers.
How AWARE serves Montana
Jenn Wihlborg is the senior mental health residential services director at AWARE’s Center for Excellence, a K-12 private school in Anaconda that has 24 clients and can provide mental health and behavior analysis on-site.
After graduating college and looking to work with youth in some kind of group home or residential setting, she joined AWARE and has been with the organization for 23 years. She said she likes the challenge.
“I am passionate that everyone can be treated,” Wihlborg said, later noting, “It’s challenging but fun. No day is the same.”
She said AWARE is unique in that it develops plans for every individual and can adapt.
“We can figure it out,” she said. “We aren’t set in it being only one way. It is very person-driven.”
Wihlborg oversees nearly 30 AWARE facilities, including the school.
“We really strive to make people part of the community they live in,” she said.
Sean Thomas Conroe, executive director Montana Mental Health Board of Visitors — which ensures people receiving services in mental health programs are treated humanely and that treatment is consistent with established clinical and other professional standards and meets state law — said in an email the board oversees some of AWARE’s facilities.
He said a February inspection of Therapeutic Youth Group Homes in Anaconda found no critical failures. That report is being finalized and will be posted on the board’s website at www.boardofvisitors.mt.gov.
“We generally found that the Center for Excellence and the related group homes form an ecosystem that is unlike anything else in the state,” Conroe said. “The services they provide are competent and well-rounded.”
But the nonprofit faces hurdles, including funding and an increasing cost of living in Montana. Wihlborg said the government is usually years behind on equitable compensation for services provided through Medicaid. She also said clients impacted by Social Security redetermination are scraping by and that wages for healthcare workers make it a challenge to hire.
Renee Gursky, AET site coordinator for Anaconda’s day services, cares for 20 clients.
Courtesy of Hong Shen Lee, AWARE, Inc.
Renee Gursky, AET site coordinator for Anaconda’s day services, cares for 20 clients. Some are in group homes and in the community. She says her job is “very rewarding.”
“I enjoy helping these individuals reach their full potential,” she said.
She said her program offers clients new resources and skills to be independent and functional in the community. They learn general janitorial and distribution tasks and provide food and cleaning supplies to the group homes.
The program includes field trips, including to the Missoula Butterfly House and Insectarium and the Gates of the Mountains north of Helena.
“To see their joy, excitement and happiness through that is exciting,” Gursky said.
Troy Miller, who has developmental disabilities, said he came to AWARE when he was 11. He’s now 36 and lives in the Mallard House residential home just outside of Missoula.
Courtesy of Hong Shen Lee, AWARE, Inc.
Troy Miller, who has developmental disabilities, said he came to AWARE when he was 11. He’s now 36 and lives in the Mallard House residential home just outside of Missoula.
He says he likes the home, where he has his own bedroom and bathroom, and being part of AWARE.
“It changes a lot. Each day there is something new going on,” Miller said.
He said he helps take care of the 11 chickens and four goats at the Mallard House. He also works part time at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Missoula.
Miller said he has a few friends in the house and a “bunch” at work.
Two days a week, he prepares meals for others in the house.
“I like to make taco soup,” he said.
He also competes in Special Olympics throughout the year, participating in sports including softball, golf, basketball, bowling and cross-country.
“I stay busy all year,” Miller said.
Looking back on 50 years in Montana
So what would Gursky and Wihlborg tell those people who gathered around that Anaconda kitchen table decades ago to discuss how to provide more services for their children with developmental needs?
“Well, they did it,” Wihlborg said, adding that the discussion created a program that exceeded expectations.
“That small round table built an agency that is still at the kitchen table developing even more services,” she said. “The values they created to meet the needs of people is still the values that AWARE conducts itself with.”
Gursky echoed those comments.
“We sure are trying,” she said.
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