THUNDER BAY -- Jamie Voth came to the city as a broken man.
Living in Manitoba, hooked on drugs, Voth headed to Thunder Bay in May looking for a place to recover. Six months later, he's washing dishes after serving a meal at Urban Abbey.
"When I first came here I really felt like I was pretty broken down. I felt very worthless and I met people here that treated me like I was somebody and I was someone of value and that meant a lot to me. To be treated that way and it really helped me get to a better place in my life," he said.
"My life's going a lot better ever since I ended up here."
Voth is the first of many people Urban Abbey hopes to help. Kimberly and Bill Morrison took over the former First Baptist Church on Red River Road and Algoma Street last April.
Since then they and an army of volunteers have been busy transforming the place into an ambitious community hub that will eventually house and feed people, run longterm addictions recovery, offer public art space and even a high end restaurant along with a traditional Anglican church service.
Kimberly, the abbey's prior, said the idea of a Celtic abbey dates back to the third century. It offers study, prayer, comfort, refuge, cultural and art. It will also offer a prayer tower, hoping to be open by Christmas, that's available to anyone at anytime. The building was gifted to the Morrisons by the baptist congregation.
The couple is spending $200,000 of their own money to get the project off the ground before looking for private donations to be fully operational by April 2016.
"Our goal is just to be a piece of what the city is trying to do," she said.
The couple met in Thunder Bay and came back to the city after living in Vancouver as they saw the need to address a crisis in the city.
"We know that Thunder Bay is suffering from one of the highest rates of absolute poverty in the province of Ontario," she said.
And so they want to help any way they can with a city that's seeing its social service overwhelmed.
While religion might be the reason the Morrisons are here, Kimberly said the abbey will be open to anyone, whether they're looking for free studio space to work on a painting or a bed while they try to kick a drug habit.
They're also hoping youth, regardless of their religion, align with what the abbey is trying to do from tackling poverty to environmental issues.
"We believe that this generation is a generation that's more conscious of social justice issues than any that preceded it," she said.
