"Loaves and fishes" provided at short notice
By Albert G. Fowler • Special to ChristianWeek
KINGSTON, ON–It was 1:20 a.m., January 8, when Salvation Army Captain Fred Butler-Caughie got the call that the power was off at Kingston’s Harbour Light Centre. By daybreak he began to realize the full extent of the crisis that was shaping up.
Freezing rain had brought down trees and powerlines throughout Eastern Ontario. The ice continued to build for the next few days. Over 80 percent of the city and 100 percent of the surrounding area were without power.
By 10 a.m., calls for help had come in from Kingston’s Emergency Measures Organization. Shelters were to be set up in schools and at Queen’s University. The frail and the elderly would be taken to a local hospital that was scheduled for closure. The Salvation Army’s job was to house, feed and clothe those unable to stay in their homes. "Captain Fred’s" office became the Salvation Army’s centre of operation.
Wearing his other hat, as a chaplain in the Militia, Butler-Caughie acquired cots for the first shelter from his regiment, the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. Transient residents at the Harbour Light and participants in the centre’s alcohol treatment program pitched in to help with the rescue operations.
Candlelight dinners?
Still in candlelight, Salvation Army staff sent out the first 400 meals to shelters. The number of volunteers passed the 200 mark as hydro crews restored power to the shelters and the number of meals prepared and sent out from the Harbour Light rose to 1,400 per day. Very few grocery stores were open, so workers gave supplies for another 1,000 meals to people to take home.
Two days into the operation a call came in from the military. They needed 300 hot meals for people in the Battersea area. A helicopter would land in a park next door to take them away in one hour!
Some thought it was an impossible request, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. The meals were ready when the helicopter arrived. All of this from an institution that normally has 18 clients in treatment and only enough spare room for six transients. It was another case of the loaves and the fishes.
