Lending a helping hand
Hours after an afternoon loss, Alouettes players doled out turkey, mashed potatoes, ice cream and apple pie to the homeless. Jesse Feith has details.
After being homeless on and off for the last 15 years, 51-year-old Charles Daguy says he’s finally been doing better lately, sharing a cheap place with friends and using shelters when needed.
“It’s difficult, but I’m surviving,” he said Monday night as he sat down to be served Thanksgiving dinner from a handful of Montreal Alouettes players at the Welcome Hall Mission.
“This helps,” he said. “Sometimes people act as if we don’t exist. But we’re all equals.”
Hours after an afternoon loss at Molson Stadium, the Alouettes wore white aprons behind the kitchen counter as they handed out turkey, mashed potatoes, ice cream and apple pie.
“Hopefully this puts a smile on people’s faces and makes them realize that we’re just like everybody else,” said linebacker Nicolas Boulay. “We’re normal people that understand their situation and want to help out, even if that means just breaking bread together and enjoying the day.”
Daguy’s friend François, who asked that his last name not be published, said he was thankful for the event. He started suffering from rheumatoid arthritis when he was 15, and tried to go to school, but had to drop out after two semesters, unable to keep up with the workload.
From there he fell into homelessness, sleeping in the streets, on friends’ couches, at shelters or in cars. Each time he’d slip up, he said, he’d lose a little bit of his confidence and it would become harder to get back up.
He found an apartment a year ago and hopes to keep it through the cold months ahead. He can usu- ally only afford to eat meals the first week of the month, so Monday night was a welcomed difference.
“It just feels good to eat a nice, warm meal,” he said quietly.
Daniel, 50, sleeps at the shelter a few months a year, and has had a bed there since mid-July.
He said he was born in Pointe-St-Charles in the mid-1960s to a father who would kick him out of the house when he’d get back from work.
“It was a rough, violent place back then,” he said. He was just 9 years old when he saw someone get shot for the first time, 13 the first time he spent the night in the streets and 16 the first time he tried crack cocaine.
He lost a kidney five years ago from his addictions and has been trying to stay clean since, making it up to 75 days without drinking before relapsing a few weeks ago.
He’s taken to volunteering at the shelter — it keeps him busy, he said — and helped set up the kitchen before the players arrived on Monday. He ate his meal before the big crowd came in, and stood by the back wall, listening, as the players gave pre-meal speeches.
Boulay was the first to speak, followed by wide receiver Samuel Giguère and linebacker Kyries Hebert.
“We lost our game today, and we don’t have the record we’d like right now,” Boulay told the room as it quieted down to hear him.
“But we’re still looking ahead, even if for some, in their eyes, we don’t even count anymore,” he added.
“We know where we want to go and we know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We stay positive and work hard. That’s the same way you have to look at life. There are dark and difficult moments, but you have to persevere.”