When Scott gets paid on Thursday, I will seek out a Salvation Army kettle and put $20 in it. This doesn't make me a hero. I'm just another person who needs to pay forward the gift the Sally Ann gave me 10 years ago. Fueled by a dangerous cocktail of depression, self-pity and substance abuse, my son Nick left home in the winter of his 16th year, headed for the mean streets of Ottawa. Fortunately, he had an angel on his shoulder in the form of Jacques Poirier, a counsellor with Ottawa's Youth Service bureau, who found him a home at the Salvation Army Young Men's Shelter. It wasn't exactly a free ride. Nick had to be out the door by 9 a.m. to either look for a job or get some counselling. He had to be back in time for curfew, or the doors would be locked. Sometimes, he didn't make the curfew and one night he had to sleep in minus 30 temperature in a parking garage downtown with drunks and addicts sniffing around him. Nick learned his lesson and al...
More than a million served!