DINNER TO RAISE MONEY FOR HOME WHERE DRUG ADDICTS CAN RECOVER

A group which wants to establish a recovery home for men battling drug
addictions will stage its first fundraising effort with a roast beef
dinner next Friday.

Don Sismey, who first went public with his plans for a six-bed
recovery home in Penticton in September, has since put together a
board of directors and received not-for-profit status for the newly
christened Penticton Recovery Resource Society.

The dinner on Friday night is the society's first attempt to get some
money to put behind the idea. Sismey has organized similar dinners in
Kelowna for Freedom's Door -- a recovery house on which Penticton's
will be modelled -- that brought in thousands of dollars.

Tickets for the dinner are $10, but Sismey said his group hopes that
diners will be willing to make additional donations to the project.

Once the funding comes in, Sismey plans to establish a six-bed shelter
called Discovery House that will offer men 19 years or older a 90-day
recovery program based on a spiritual 12-step program. As a recovering
addict himself, Sismey has experienced the benefit of such an approach.

"The 12-step program itself is a spiritual program -- they suggest you
find a higher power and they suggest it be God," he said. "You can
struggle and struggle with it yourself ... for myself it didn't work.
When I act on my own will, it doesn't work, when I act in God's will,
things seem more controllable."

Discovery House will focus on healing the bodies, minds and souls of
drug-addicted men, he said. Addicts will likely need to be drug-free
for a number of days before being admitted to the house and once there
will be directed to existing community resources.

As badly as the group needs money, the initiative is also looking for
community support, he said.

"Financial (help) is desperately needed, but (so is) any kind of
interest from the community," he said.

Dinner starts at 6 p.m. at St. John Vianney hall at 361 Wade Avenue W.
Call Don Sismey at 486-4428 or St. Ann's parish at 492-3169.