Jessica Kenny, Centretown News
Steve Halliburton volunteers at the Salvation Army and runs sports programs for homeless men.On Wednesday afternoons, volunteers, with soccer balls and footballs in hand, head to the Salvation Army Booth Centre, where they organize and play pickup sports with homeless men, recovering addicts, and members of the downtown neighbourhood.
But the volunteers aren’t there just to kick around a ball. The sports initiative is designed to help the men at the Booth Centre return to normal living through positive influences and exercise.
The centre, located just east of the ByWard Market on George Street, is a Christian non-profit that seeks to alleviate poverty and homelessness in the city. The centre offers an emergency shelter, street outreach, and Anchorage, a drug and alcohol addiction recovery program.
“You can tell it’s an appreciated break in their lives,” says Stephen Halliburton, a Carleton criminology graduate who has volunteered for the past year. “They can all go out and just sort of be big kids.”
The pickup games started two years ago, when Melissa Weigel, the chaplain at the centre, connected with an old friend, Chris Barrett, the leader of the Carleton Navigators, a Christian campus club. Weigel says Barrett suggested getting the students and young men he knew out to play sports with the men at the centre.
“We didn’t have anything that was recreational for the clients here so it turned out to be a really good match,” says Weigel.
Halliburton, who heard about volunteering through Barrett, says he was out almost every week this past summer and saw 20 to 25 men play weekly.
Weigel says word of mouth spread over the summer between those at the Booth Centre and other shelters such as The Ottawa Mission and Shepherds of Good Hope, causing the sports games to become popular.
The volunteers normally gather the group at a nearby park and start a game of soccer, basketball, or football. However, with the cold weather approaching, renting gym space is a challenge to Booth Centre’s budget says Krista Holts, the manager of addictions service.
Holts says they plan to rent the Routhier Community Centre once a month, as it’s just a 10-minute walk from the shelter on Guigues Avenue. With the sport happening less often, Holts says she wants to expand the recreation program to include less costly activities, such as meditation or yoga.
Halliburton says beyond letting the men release stress, the sports allow the volunteers to build meaningful relationships with the homeless and recovering addicts.
“It’s a change from their daily lives and routine to interact with people who can give them encouragement as they try to straighten themselves out,” says Halliburton.
Weigel says the centre’s philosophy is to be “a place of new beginnings” and that the pickup sports have made a visible impact at the shelter.
“Conflict was reduced because they were able to get out some of their frustrations on a field rather than interpersonally,” says Weigel.
Weigel adds sports are a great bonding experience, saying it allows those at the centre to engage with others in a healthy environment.
“It’s not fun related to drugs or alcohol, it’s fun when you’re sober and getting out and doing activity,” she says.
Chris Mick, a recent graduate of the Anchorage drug and alcohol treatment program at the Booth Centre, joined in the pickup sports over the summer.
Mick says playing sports with the volunteers was a way of connecting with positive people, and leaving behind bad influences.
“The guys that I was running with were not good people,” says Mick. “But the sports, that’s what good fellowship is to me, getting together for a common goal and just to have fun, you know?”