Warning: This story contains discussion of suicide and addiction.
FORT FRANCES — An organization aiming to help those living with additions and mental health struggles just realized a first in Fort Frances, and will be back at the end of the month to help connect the community to speakers and resources aimed at helping people recover.
The Empower 2 Recover Foundation (E2R) is a not-for-profit organization started by Kenora resident Jay Barnard, an executive chef and motivational speaker who has 17 years of recovery from addictions under his belt.
Barnard gathered with supporters at the Fort Frances Civic Centre on Tuesday, Sept. 3, in order to see his organization's flag raised by mayor Andrew Hallikas and town staff in order to officially recognize the month as Recovery Month. According to Barnard, this event marks the first time such a flag has been flown in Canada, and a definite first for his organization, helping to set the stage for an event he and his team are planning to hold here in Fort Frances on Sept. 27, at the Memorial Sports Centre.
Barnard is also known as Chef Recovery, and he is using his platforms and organization to give help and hope to others working to overcome addictions.
“Almost 17 years ago I got into recovery,” Barnard explained.
“So Feb. 11, 2008, I finally hit what I thought was rock bottom, basically sick and tired of just going to jail. The system said, 'do you want to try treatment?' and I didn't know what treatment was, but at the end of the day I just had to try something different. So I flew to Ottawa, Ontario, and the Salvation Army [Ottawa Booth Centre, Anchorage Residential Treatment Program], where I started this wonderful journey.”
It was following the beginning of this recovery journey that Barnard came up with the Chef Recovery moniker, owing to his attending school to become a professional chef. He also began what he calls “recovering out loud,” an idea that in order to bust the stigma surrounding those trying to recover from addictions and reach more people who might benefit from knowing they were not experiencing the process alone, he would be public about his recovery journey.
“There's a lot of people dying in silence,” Barnard said.
“The way I saw it back then was, if I recover out loud, maybe I would be able to not only just help myself, I'd be able to help somebody else.”
Barnard's training and Chef Recovery identity eventually landed him in Fort McMurray, Alta., where he became a celebrity chef to the stars, including Wayne Gretzky and Snoop Dogg, but it was stepping into motivational speaking that set the stage for the realization of his greatest dream.
“All of a sudden, my motivational speaking career across Canada took off, I was starting to get booked everywhere,” he said.
“That was probably around the three and a half, four year marker. Prior to that, I was a guy in jail. I was a guy overdosing. I was a guy [trying to commit] suicide. I was a guy that didn't love myself. I was so handcuffed by my unresolved trauma that all I knew how to do was continuously use, use, use. Once those doors started opening, I was really able to find my voice, and when I was able to find my voice, other people started finding their voices, which was even more insane.”
Barnard said it was when he was invited to give a TEDx Talk that he dreamed of an event that would bring together otherwise separate community assets, organizations, service providers, knowledge keepers, Indigenous systems and more in order to provide all the possibilities of recovery and connection to those who might not find success in traditional treatment centres. If he could do that, he said, then he and all those who were looking to help others, could “change the world.”
While Barnard experienced professional setbacks along his road following that realization in 2015, particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic, he said it was the power of manifestation and hard work that have brought him to town with E2R, in the midst of a successful speaking and event tour that has so far seen him organize and put on six live events in the past 13 months. Barnard said their most recent event, held in Saskatoon, Sask., had 343 people attend, which has brought their total to 1,284 attendees across their live events, a number Barnard calls a “statistic of hope.”
The live event scheduled for Fort Frances, called “Fort Frances' Battle for Recovery,” will feature the hallmarks of E2R's live events, including several speakers who have lived experience with addictions and mental health struggles.
“Nobody's really tried to say, 'I'm going to take everything, put it underneath one roof, and really try to help,” Barnard said.
“Nobody's ever said, 'I'm going to bring all these people together and we're going to have a phenomenal day.' Every speaker gets intro music. We have slideshows. We've got our partners like the Mental Health Foundation of Alberta. We show videos all day. It's a massively, massively impactful day full of showing the statistics of hope. If we keep showing more statistics of hope, that means that there's more hope for individuals that need the hope. And if we show more hope, we're gonna have less death.”
The Sept. 27 event will also feature champion strongwoman Holly McRae as a keynote speaker, and Barnard said it will help provide hope to those still struggling, as well as connections to other services that can step in when someone is in need of help.
“It's really shown me that the people want it,” he said.
“As of Saskatoon, now we have 67 different community assets as part of the ARN Network, the Alternative Recovery Network, which is how I help people. How our organization helps people is through the ARN, which is the community assets that come to our events, and then I'm able to reach out to those individual places and say, 'listen, I have somebody that needs help. Do you have room, can you take them on, can we start the process?'
"Over the last year that we test-piloted, we've helped 29 different people get help that they needed. That's all kinds of help, that's treatment second stage, that's art therapy, that's active lifestyle, healthy nutrition, land based, holistic approaches. We understand that there's all walks to recovery, not everybody recovers the same way. We also understand harm reduction, safe supply, all that stuff has a place in this world, as long as we have a wraparound service in place for those people that need the help when it comes to that.”
Barnard also noted that the day after the live event in Fort Frances, there will also be a walk held on Sept. 28, marking National Recovery Day, where he said participants will depart from the Fort Frances Civic Centre in the morning.
General admission for the event is $49.99 plus an electronic service fee of $1.25, and includes attendance for the entire 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. day, including a catered lunch. There also also options for Community Asset / Vendor Booth tickets, as well as a combo package that will include 10 general admission tickets and promotional extras.
Tickets for Empower 2 Recover Foundation's “Fort Frances' Battle for Recovery” are on sale now at their website, empower2recover.com.
Fort Frances Times/Local Journalism Initiative
