Latest / Community Champion of the Week / Ginger Auger, Owner of Ginger’s Bannock House in Fort McMurray

Transcript

Ginger Auger, Owner of Ginger’s Bannock House in Fort McMurray · Community Champion of the Week

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, my name is Ginger OJ from Ginger's Batic House.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, Ginger.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little more.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: How does it make you feel getting recognized by your community?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're this week's community champion.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am so humbled.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I am so honored.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just grateful to be here.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I it's surprising.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing a lot of work of healing and I want to share what I've learned and maybe help others that are like me.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I come from young parents up at by Gruard.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And my mother, well, they were really young, like 14 and 16.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So they didn't stay together too long.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: They tried and she just moved around trying to find herself.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um her grandma that raised her passed away.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we come from a background from of intergenerational trauma.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, she was just trying to find herself.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I try not to tell her story too much, but it's important because she tried so hard.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: She was always there, but she was so young and she needed guidance and she was always looking for something, seeking anything to help her.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And she struggled with a lot of mental health and eventually addictions.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I lost her.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to help her and I didn't realize what she was going through until she was gone.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I felt what she went through.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh, I thought she was supposed to know everything, but she didn't.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand the intergenerational trauma.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand anything that she went through until she was gone.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The loss of her, I ended up becoming a an alcoholic and other addictions.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was lost for for many years.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you YouTube me, there's a time I fell in a well in Coachella.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was just lost.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't want to live.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be here.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I tried to help others like her.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I grew up in a Metis.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up with in Metis environments with my family.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: My family was amazing.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I don't wanna it's hard to tell my story and and point fingers at everybody, but it was just relating to other people's because they're a lot like mine, how we suffered or went through a lot of things and how we we got lost, I guess, including my mother.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually I went to treatment.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: My sister recommended treatment years after, and it was the best thing I did.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Indigenous Treatment Center.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I was able to connect with my culture.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to find tools to recover, find tools to heal myself, to understand.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just understand, like understanding yourself.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I always tell people we're like onions, like just peeling away the layers, and we're there.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to be here and rise up.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, try, get out there, do help others.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we need to rise up together.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: My story is about rising together, doing everything together, and I'm so I'm so proud of you all.