Bridge St. United Church, Belleville
This was our once-a-month morning to pick up baked goods from Cobs Bakery and Metro to be delivered to the Bridge St. United Church meal ministry. As I mentioned before, we enter through the same door used by the guests of the drop-in and the meal program. It was just outside this entrance, within sight of what was once my minister's study, where five people collapsed within minutes two weeks ago, all poisoned by toxic drugs.
This morning there were familiar faces outside, including a woman who is featured in the article linked below. Another offered her help in getting the laden cart inside. She was cheerful despite sleeping in a tent on a -7C night, chuckling that she'd been toasty between her brother and another friend. There was no sense of the recent chaotic scene when people they surely knew overdosed. Yet some of the photos from around Bridge St UC show the yellow tape of a crime scene. It is a crime that people are living this way
Along with the Global News article, here is a link to the audio for a worthwhile segment of TV Ontario's The Agenda program which included Jennifer Cormier of the John Howard Society in Belleville.
Ruth will be back at Bridge St on Monday for her weekly shift distributing meals I do wish the congregation would be known for the ongoing faithful work it is doing for and with those who live on the margins of society, not just for the shocking events of recent days.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10301931/bellevilles-drug-emergency-lays-bare-toll-of-wider-crisis/
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