Feeding the poor shouldn’t be about who gets the credit

 

Sometimes the truth gets in the way of a good story. Or makes an easily understood good story more complicated to explain.

That’s what’s happening in Barrie right now and, unfortunately, it has made a two-year-old initiative to feed the hungry a source of needless conflict and self-serving social media attacks against good organizations cast as rivals rather than partners.

The good story was born out of tragedy. On November 29, 2020, a 35-year-old Barrie man named Ryan Nayler died of a drug overdose. Ryan was a musician, poet, vegan, animal and human rights advocate and university graduate with a master’s degree. He was also a bipolar person who suffered from periodic depression and psychotic episodes. He sometimes self-medicated with drugs like crack cocaine and crystal meth to cope. 

Ryan Nayler’s death was sad and sudden. He was one of more than 100 homeless people in Barrie who died from exposure, opioid overdoses, suicides and other causes during the pandemic. Most of them died briefly noticed and quickly forgotten, but not Ryan.

Shortly after his death, his grieving mother, Christine Nayler, started an organization in her son’s memory called Ryan’s Hope to advocate for others dealing with mental health issues, substance abuse and homelessness. Ryan’s Hope quickly attracted media and public attention related to a breakfast program on the street for homeless people in downtown Barrie.

“Grieving Mother Starts Breakfast Program for the Homeless in Son’s Memory” was an appealing, heart-warming story. But the startup wasn’t that direct.

It involved not only Christine, but one of the most dedicated social justice groups in Barrie: KAIROS. During the past decade, the ecumenical coalition of churches has been involved with such causes as refugee sponsorship, indigenous justice, rights for migrant farm workers and housing and homelessness.

During the covid crisis, Christine Nayler was the chair of Burton United Church’s outreach committee and a KAIROS member from Burton. Following Ryan’s death she urged KAIROS to become involved in providing breakfasts outdoors to homeless people because programs at the Busby Centre and Salvation Army were suspended due to health regulations on indoor gatherings. She saw a gap and leaped into it in memory of her son “out of pain, grief and love.”

Christine, her husband Tom and Rina Krans of the Christian Reformed Church, a long-time Busby Centre volunteer, started serving coffee and muffins to street people at the bus depot in downtown Barrie. KAIROS members responded quickly to Christine’s call and example.

Minutes from KAIROS meetings show that Grace United Church started serving breakfasts on Tuesdays at the Salvation Army parking lot across from the bus depot in March 2021. In April, Burton United Church, Collier United Church, Westside Lutheran Church and St. Mary’s Roman Catholic took responsibility for other days of the week. Seven churches were soon engaged in Breakfast To Go, including the Christian Reformed Church and St. Margaret’s Anglican Church in support of Grace and Westside, respectively. 

These churches provided the funds, food and volunteers for their days. Food served included muffins, croissants, hot oatmeal, granola bars, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, cheese sticks, bananas, apples, oranges, coffee, tea, orange juice, apple juice and ice tea.

As a group, they reviewed the week’s events on Zoom calls, talking about what went well and what could be improved. Christine sometimes participated in those meetings.

In July 2021, Christine announced she had incorporated Ryan’s Hope as a not-for-profit organization. The churches soon saw less of her as she focused on building support for Ryan’s Hope, which was serving breakfasts on weekends (Friday to Sunday).

Christine proposed that the churches, their resources and volunteers come under the direction of Ryan’s Hope.

The churches didn’t want to turn over their outreach programs to Ryan’s Hope, which was incorporated as a family-run enterprise, not a registered charity. Christine, her husband and daughter were and are the only registered directors. They didn’t want to expand the board to turn Ryan’s Hope into a broad-based community organization, so the churches passed on the proposal.

There’s no doubt Christine Nayler was the catalyst for Breakfast To Go. Churches answered her call and helped to get the program up and running four days a week. 

At no time was Christine or Ryan’s Hope SOLELY responsible for Breakfast To Go becoming an effective, seven-days-a-week program. It became a success because of the joint effort of Barrie churches and Ryan’s Hope. It has always been a shared accomplishment, but Christine has been unable to acknowledge that or share the credit. 

Worse than that, she has lashed out against the churches who are contributing as much to Breakfast To Go as Ryan’s Hope, accusing them of disrespecting the memory of her son and trying to steal her legacy. Using the tools of social media, she has made the Busby Centre and its executive director and board members targets of her wrath, causing others to join her attacks on social media. 

One supporter, responding to her outbursts, called Busby, a non-government charitable foundation with a 29-year-history of helping the homeless,  a criminal and corrupt organization.

At Sunday’s breakfast this week, Christine spoke to the homeless who came to be fed, telling them churches are trying to take over the Breakfast to Go program and the legacy of Ryan’s Hope. Her words caused some to be angry at Busby and the churches, but others were appalled at the homeless being conscripted into her grievances.

The bad karma coming from this kind of behaviour does no one any good. It undermines the primary mission and tarnishes everyone — the churches, Busby, Ryan’s Hope and Christine herself.

Breakfast To Go should be about the people on the street who need the help, not about who gets the credit or who wants to build a legacy.

Vulnerable people in Barrie need people who can work together for the common good without personal agendas. Every community in Ontario, indeed Canada, needs supportive collaboration because as a society we don’t do enough to help the homeless, the vulnerable, persons with mental health issues and substance abusers. 

Breakfast To Go moved off the street and indoors to Trinity Anglican Church last week, causing Christine to fume publicly about a press release by the churches announcing the move. Folks who actually read the announcement couldn’t fathom why the bland contents triggered an angry six-minute video on Facebook aimed at Busby and the churches.

“We will not allow Busby and these churches to take over our program,” she raged. “They are now trying to take credit and say that it is a church initiative started by KAIROS. I am here to say bullshit.”

In the video, Christine said “Busby owns homelessness in Barrie,” adding Ryan’s Hope is offering the vulnerable a choice, as if helping the poor is a consumer competition.

Ironically, she took the shot at Busby while claiming that Breakfast to Go was a Ryan’s Hope initiative and belongs to Ryan’s Hope alone. She gave the impression the churches were late to the dance, neglecting to acknowledge they were with her from the beginning.

In reality, origin stories and “ownership” of the program shouldn’t matter.  What should matter is that poor people are being fed seven days a week and Ryan’s Hope and the churches are doing it.

Breakfast to Go is not the private preserve of Ryan’s Hope and never has been. It’s a joint mission to the people it serves, who need all the help they can get from every willing source. 

It’s time for everyone to stand in solidarity with all contributors to Breakfast to Go and those they serve. And it’s time to thank everyone who has stayed the course outdoors in all kinds of weather for more than two years. 

Thank you Christine Nayler, Ryan’s Hope, KAIROS and all the volunteers from Burton United Church, Collier United Church, Grace United Church, Westside Lutheran Church, the Christian Reformed Church, St. Margaret’s Anglican Church and St. Marys Roman Catholic Church.

It’s good to see you and the people you serve come in from the cold at Trinity Anglican Church.