The president of a local peer support organization says COVID-19 has been particularly hard on their clients.
Michael George says he couldn’t have guessed a pandemic was coming soon after he founded Fresh Start Peer Support in Port Hawkesbury in 2019.
George tells The Hawk it’s especially hard on vulnerable people their organization helps.
“When the virus hit, people closed their doors for one, and there was no place even for people to go to a bathroom,” he says. “We map out a trail to the bathroom and the shower and everything- then people were still being able to have a shower (and) freshen up.”
George says they didn’t close.
He says it went beyond just bathrooms- when restaurants closed, there was no place for someone to get in out of the cold and get a hot meal.
“We fed people there every day when the COVID-19 first hit,” he says. “We had a picnic table and served- outside- a meal on that picnic table.”
George says they’ll keep helping people through the pandemic as we battle the second wave.
