Cal Maskery (Photo: Facebook)
The man who started Harvest House Atlantic, now has a new mission.
Cal Maskery has launched the Shekinah Glory Outreach Centre on Lester Avenue.
“We’re focusing on overcomers. It’s 12 Step program to help people with addictions that don’t have time to go to a nine month program. The majority of people can’t give up nine months of their life to go to a program. Those who are true addicts, that can’t be alone for any length of time, they need a closed program, so we’ll still refer them to Harvest House and other missions. I do an online video every night from Monday to Saturday. It’s something I developed while I was recuperating from a motorcycle accident. There was nothing that I knew of that helped people in the evenings,” Maskery says.
The goal is to work with local churches to create outreach events called Hope Rallies on a monthly basis, in an effort to help attack the drug culture.
“The biggest problem with addiction is people get into isolation, keep it to themselves and they struggle. Everybody needs somebody to talk to. Sometimes, just having those relationships someone to listen to, someone to talk to and then we tell them, instead of calling after you do something foolish, now that they have relationships, call someone before you do it,” adds Maskery.
Currently, the Centre also offers in person meetings on Thursday nights so people can talk and share and have an accountability partner.
“We’re just new, and we’re just starting to build a base and we and we’re working towards getting our charitable status. We should have it by the end of the year, it usually takes three to six months. I’d be the only staff person, most of it just volunteers, people that I’ve known over the years. I’ve been here 33 years doing mission work, so I’m well known in the community and people are responding well already. So I’m pretty encouraged by that. The centre is right now being run by volunteers and donations,” Maskery says.
He says drugs are a much bigger problem in the city than they were in the past, “I just see so many people spiraling out of control and the drug culture is getting worse. When we started Harvest House we were handling a lot of it, and alleviating a lot of it in the City but even with all of the housing we do in partnership with Rising Tide, there’s more people on the streets doing drugs than there ever was,” adds Maskery.
