PARRY SOUND - After 20 years sponsoring Teen Challenge GTA to help people working to beat drug and alcohol addiction, local businessman Garry Cox and his wife Heather are now hands-on as employees with the organization. A faith-based program, Canada Teen Challenge offers a one-year, volunteer residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for adults.
Garry Cox, co-owner of Parry Sound Fuels, the business his father started in 1935, stepped back from active involvement in the company and has taken on the position of Teen Challenge GTA Advisory Board chairman and Ms Cox took on the role of tours and volunteers co-ordinator for the new women's residential facility near King City.
"I got tired of business and felt drawn to do something other than just write a cheque," said Mr. Cox.
Teen Challenge GTA purchased the former retreat last fall and it's expected to open as a women's facility by June 2008. The centre can house 75 women at once with apartment-style living quarters.
As chairman, Mr. Cox's duties include fund-raising for the $5.9 million capital campaign to open and pay the mortgage for the women's facility. Ms Cox coordinates volunteers at the centre and takes interested parties on tours of it. They are also responsible for helping to make Teen Challenge a household name.
Mr. Cox had planned to retire from the business this past spring, but wasn't sure what he would to do from there. Then he heard the organization's call for volunteers in January and contacted them. The couple planned to start helping out in September, but in the end, they both started their new jobs in May.
Previously the couple had billeted those in the program while they were in Parry Sound area as part of the facility's choir, or when moving from the men's centre in London to the one in Sault Ste. Marie.
There are 14 Teen Challenge centres in Canada with over 600 split between 90 countries worldwide.