Wow, this sure takes me back. As runaways so many of us teenage girls from Willingdon School For Girls in Burnaby were reliant on the great people who founded and ran the Vancouver Cool Aid.

We are searching out archived media articles without any luck but, did discover that Victoria is still strong and looking out for the marginalized ones so often left without any resources.

Is there anyone out there who was in Willingdon School For Girls or knows someone who was?

Is there anyone who has any ideas how we can locate media clippings on Cool Aid Vancouver?

I guess they went to the Vancouver Sun to complain on our behalf of the inhuman conditions we were being forced to "live" in...

Cool Aid has always been a GREAT Organization. Keep up your good works

Please visit our website; www.voicesfromtheruins.com.   Just in the building stages but, contact info. available.

Hi. Ya, I was homeless, I was in this putrid, horrible cycles of abuse and low self worth to no self worth cuz of the treatment I was enduring and put up with.  I have had help from so many sources and I know Cool Aid is a big organization so has been a big help.   The main realization I had, building up from so many people taking the time to talk to me, patience, and skillful questions to help me untangle  my messed up headspace, was that I don't need to stay a victim.  It was switching my mentality from "I'm always the victim, everyone is doing this to me, I have no control", to Margaret Atwood's quote:  "This above all else, Refuse to be a victim".    Many counsellors and medical professionals in the Swift St Medical Clinic (Now the ACCESS Healthcare Center), at Streetlink, and Sandi Merriman House listened to me and talked to me so I could grow in my understanding to reach this point in my life that I feel released from the hold of my worthlessness and no self esteem.  Even better, a lot of the clients and volunteers in these places, the ones who were getting healthy themselves too, contributed to my increase in understanding and validated my experiences to reassure me that I was headed in the right direction in figuring all this out.  It took so many years and so many patient, kind, and gentle and mild people, but I can finally comfortably say I am creating more and more distance from the ugly life and attitude and mentality I left behind.  I am not even addicted to drugs physically, yet my battle was as fierce I dare say, because of the fact that I suffered the same, a low value of myself and felt so worthless.  The damage is damage, addiction is addiction, cuz it is about the behaviour that results.  All symptoms of the underlying troubles that feed and keep the behaviour going.  Never-the-less, the genuine care and concern of these people helped propel me to see my worth, because they did.  They expressed this confidence in me then I started developing it in myself, I had a basis, a validation.  They are definitely not in their jobs merely for a paycheque.  Sitting patiently listening to me go on and on, not cutting me off or being short or impatient, but focusing me and giving me reminders to make sure I was on track.  As well being able to volunteer with different events with Cool Aid further reinforced and increased my self esteem.  My recovery and motivation came from many different sources, the lead being aligning my life by the Bible's standards taught through the Jehovah's Witnesses, and agencies like Cool Aid have complimented this first source of wisdom and provided an integral and immense source of help that I  am carrying through to this day and producing fine results from.  My desire is to continue to better myself, always improve, become stronger, braver, more courageous and peaceable.  The sometimes necessary bluntness and direct guidence I have been given by the people at Cool Aid has put me further in this right direction.  All the money in the world won't fix the homeless problem, time and caring people will, love and patience will.  After all, time is money, more valuable, because you can't earn it back.

I came to Victoria 20  years ago to be with my children, at that time they were 1 and 3 years of age.  I was in unsuccessful relationships that involved alcohol and substance use.  My failing relationships usually kept me from getting a place and I stayed in these relationships, thinking they were my only hope.  I became homeless and became one of the panhandling Crew.

We numbered at least forty in those days15 years ago and we looked after each other.  Quite often, each other was all we had to help us get through the rough times.  We trusted and loved one another, like family. 

 I have turned my life around and have had my children for ten years, as a part of my life.  I quit drinking and stopped using drugs. It was hard and I lost alot of friends; or so I thought.  I started Adult Basic Upgrading, and went on to attain my First Nations Family Support Worker Certificate at Camosun.  I have finished my first year of the Child, Family and Community Studies Diploma.  My daughter has followed in my footsteps and is entering her First Nations Commmunity Studies Diploma Program at Camosun.  My son lives with me and I am teaching him how to become independent.  I am also the proud grandmother of a three year old, and my family spends much time together. 

I Thank Cool Aid for being there for me 20 years ago when I was homeless and I hope to be able to work with the Cool Aid soon to help our homeless find a solution to their homelessness and the other challenges they face in every day life.

Hello, my name is sharon and first of all I would like to congratulate you on Cool Aid's 40th Anniversary. But I would also like to know if Victoria Cool Aid was in any way affiliated with the Cool Aid in Vancouver at 1822 West 7th Avenue - where I went as a 15-year old runaway living on the street in 1971. The place appears to have disappeared even from the collective memory of the Internet.

If you have any information regarding this I would truly appreciate it. As for stories of that place, I have lots. That is where I met my son's father as well as a man whom I adopted as my street father and who passed away seven years ago. He was one of my last links to the place. These are just two of the events that have engraved that place in my heart.

Sharon Ledderhof

There is a struggle being waged in Victoria against addiction, poverty and homelessness. The Victoria Cool Aid Society is the front line in that struggle!

In the beginning I was a casualty in this war, badly injured in a plane crash while traveling home from work managing a forestry crew on the west coast. I spent several years fighting pain, with pain killers, which lead to a heroin addiction, street drugs and years of living on the street.

Since my involvement with the doctor’s nurses, dentist and administration staff at the Cool Aid Community Health Centre, I have become one of a dedicated team determined to make a difference in this struggle.

I am now 59 and have spent the last five years working in the supportive addiction field.

I’m 35 now.  When I was 25 social services told me I had to stop drinking.  They were threatening to take away my two children if I didn’t.  I’d been in a violent relationship and they referred me to Bridges for Women for help getting back to work.  I stopped drinking without much problem, but I had no child support, very little money, single mom, the usual.  

Upon recommendation I attended the Jubilee Hospital for support for the drinking, depression and anxiety.  Later I moved to Bridges. As I was attending their program the supportive staff recommended Cool Aid’s dental clinic because my teeth needed so much work and I was on financial assistance.  All the people at the clinic were so sweet.  The receptionist, the dentists and hygienists looked after me and helped me rebuild my self-confidence.  I was in a very dark place at that time.  I didn’t know if I’d ever have a normal job because I couldn’t smile.  If it weren’t for them fixing my teeth, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.  To them, it didn’t matter who I was.  They accepted me.

In February until April of 2003, I went to a rehab up island in another Vancouver Island community. By August, I had slid back into a total relapse and was, again, homeless and spending all the money which I could scrounge on my drug of choice.

Deciding that it was necessary to break the chains of old associations and places of that town I hitch hiked to Victoria on the 21st of August 2003, where I spent my first night at the Streetlink shelter which is run by Cool Aid. 

IN MEMORIAM

When he died at 64 in early July, the name Laurie Smith was largely forgotten. But those who today benefit from Cool-Aid, and in particular its extraordinary medical services, could do worse than pause a moment in his honour.