Alumni rally to aid flooded residents of Brentwood
Water started rushing under the doors of Brentwood Recovery Home during last Tuesday’s epic flood and in a matter of hours, 85 residents already battling some of life’s greatest challenges were flushed out onto the streets.
The entire Dougall Avenue facility had to be evacuated.
“We put everything in garbage bags and we were out of there in about five minutes,” said Lucille, a resident nine weeks into her 12-week treatment program for alcoholism.
“You hear a lot of talk in the circles about fellowship but I saw the fellowship in action. It’s been an extremely spiritual experience.”
Dan Soulliere, Brentwood’s executive director, was vacationing in South Carolina when he started receiving photographs of the flooded buildings and phone calls from staff.
“Some areas of the women’s building had three feet of water at one point and the main building had a foot in some places,” he said.
Within a couple of hours, all 85 residents had alternate lodging provided by Brentwood alumni.
“It was incredible,” Soulliere said of the response. “Only at Brentwood could this happen. Our staff worked their butts off. It’s really touched me to see this.”
One alumnus took Lucille and eight other women into their home. Other alumni cooked and dropped off food. “We had some wonderful one-on-one conversations while we were there,” Lucille said. “It was an extremely warming experience.”
Anthony, another resident 18 days shy of completing his threemonth program, sought refuge with his parents last week.
“The beginning of this was frightening,” he said. “It was actually shocking but the more we looked around it was amazing to see everyone go into action.”
Male residents returned to their campus rooms Monday while female residents who stay at the separate Kay Ryan Centre were heading back Tuesday.
Residence rooms were not damaged by water but were inaccessible because of flooding elsewhere.
“We lost everything — all our furniture, all the carpeting,” Soulliere said of the damage on the main floor.
Group leaders hit the road to conduct recovery sessions where displaced residents were staying but regular programming resumed Tuesday in the basement of Our Lady of Assumption Church on McEwan Avenue. Residents were bused back and forth to the church.
“We’ve got everything we need here,” Soulliere said.
“We’ll do all our meetings here, everything we usually do for our day at Brentwood.” A crew from BELFOR Restoration Services arrived on-site last Thursday.
“They had 50 guys working two shifts,” Soulliere said. “I can’t believe what they’ve done. They said it would be functional on Friday.
“Our motto is ‘Where people need people’ and nowhere could you get a better example of people helping people than this. It’s just incredible.”