Golf tournament a tool for healing

Organizers of the second annual Raising Awareness Together golf tournament were overwhelmed by the positive turnout the event got last year.
But they have not let success slow them down. Almost immediately after last year’s tournament, planning was underway for this year’s event.
After all, the organizers know that their efforts are aimed much higher than just hosting a successful golf tournament.
“Our goal has been the same the whole time, to raise awareness about prescription drug abuse,” said Mike McKay of the Independent First Nations Alliance, one of the tournament’s organizers. “The feedback we’re getting and the interest we’re getting is good, and we’re grateful that all those people are interested.”
McKay and the two other organizers – Travis Boissoneau of Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Adrienne Morris of the Chiefs of Ontario – were each struck in their own way by the devastating effect of prescription drug abuse on their families, friends and communities.
In McKay’s case, it was a trip he took to his home community of Bearskin Lake a few years ago that got him thinking of what he could do to bring attention to the epidemic.
During that trip, he said, it really hit home just what community members were going through because of drug addictions.
“I was frustrated and upset,” McKay reflected. “At that time it seemed like no one was doing anything about it.”
McKay’s frustration eventually led to last year’s successful tournament, where 96 players participated and the organizers raised $5,000 towards a drug treatment program and after care program at Dennis Franklin Cromarty (DFC) High School in Thunder Bay.
As Boissoneau explained, by targeting DFC’s program the organizers were thinking of the communities across the North.
“Since the DFC program services northern communities, it’s easier to get a broader range,” he said.
Morris also noted that the DFC program is unfunded, and can use all the help it can get.
“Knowing students who came to school and didn’t know how to get help or where to go, we saw that it is up to us to show them we’re there for them,” Morris said.
DFC’s suboxone program has treated 35 students since it was set up last year, with two-thirds of them completing the program. Eight students who completed the program have now gone on to graduate high school.
Meanwhile, as McKay noted, the efforts to get the word out about the dire effects of prescription drug abuse in communities seems to be growing. He pointed to recent walks by Lyle Fox, William Mekanak and members from Slate Falls First Nation, and the cross-country bicycle tour two members of Sandy Lake are on right now, as examples of other individual efforts to raise awareness.
“With all this awareness, I think it will be easier for people to come out and say they have a problem and get treatment for it,” McKay said.
“I’m proud that in Bearskin Lake there is a treatment centre there now,” he added. “One day I’d like to see every community have access to these programs, at a community level.”
The Raising Awareness Together golf tournament takes place on June 22 at Fort William Country Club in Thunder Bay. Registration must be done by June 15. For more information call Travis Boissoneau at (807) 625-4938.