Just over a year ago Mackenzie Flook was seriously spinning her wheels in life.
Just over a year ago Mackenzie Flook was seriously spinning her wheels in life.
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Homeless and addicted to drugs, with a newborn son, she was ready and willing to get on the road to recovery.
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Fortunately, she crossed paths with Safe Families Chatham-Kent, a charity that helps families in crisis.
A year later, Flook, 31, has worked so hard and impressed so many people with how she’s turned her life around, the community has rallied to provide her a vehicle.
This month, Safe Families, the Handy Bros. Heroes program and Tilbury’s Lally Chevrolet handed Flook the keys to a 2012 Chevy Equinox SUV to help make her life a little easier.
“I was completely in shock,” said Flook, who admitted she wasn’t sure it was real when she was handed the keys.
“It’s a huge blessing and I’m just super, super grateful, especially having Safe Families in my life,” she said.
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Safe Families director Brian Kivell said when he first met Flook more than a year ago, it was hard to imagine the position she is in today.
“It didn’t look like a very positive situation,” he said. “It didn’t look like even a good road to a positive outcome.”
Noting Safe Families works to support families in crisis to avoid children going into foster care, Kivell said Flook was connected to several supports.
“I said, ‘Listen, if you want to do this, we’ll walk you, but you have to work the hardest,’ ” he recalled.
Over the last year, Flook has done everything possible to get healthy and off drugs, get her 14-month-old son, Colton, back and be a mother to him.
“It has been such a beautiful thing to watch,” Kivell said.
Once a homeless drug user, Flook said when Colton was born, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep him. “My life wasn’t even set up to make it possible to make it work,” she said.
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Working with Safe Families, they set a plan, she said. She went into detox, then rehab and is soon to move out of a Windsor maternity home and return to Chatham.
Flook hopes her story will inspire others.
“But you’ve got to want it,” she added.
Unfortunately, many people can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, she said.
“Safe Families has given me (that) light. . . ,” Flook said. “They’ve given me hope that my life was actually getting better.”
Normally, Safe Families’ help for families doesn’t extend to working with others to get them a free vehicle, Kivell said, but Flook is a very special exception.
“It has been a miracle and you can see God working in it, because it’s not something you can do on your own,” he said.
Flook was in the right place and ready to change, he said. And Handy Bros. and Safe Families already had been talking about working together.
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“I wanted to do something for Christmas,” said Mitch White, owner of Handy Bros. Home Comfort, who reached out to Kivell because he wanted to do something big with Safe Families, but hadn’t found the right fit.
When they first started talking, White saw a Safe Families video about Flook’s journey. A year later, when Kivell suggested finding a car for Flook, White realized she was on the road to recovery and has only become stronger.
“To me, that’s a huge win,” he said.
Not only did White want to help take away a “large pain point” in Flook’s life, he said, “I also wanted to share an inspiring story with the rest of the world.”
Handy Bros. made a video of Flook receiving her vehicle, but another one is coming that will delve deeper into Flook’s story, White said.
It’s about spreading a positive message and helping people, he explained. “We believe at Handy Bros, we were blessed with this company, and . . . it’s our mission now to hurt other people with it.”
Flook said the new vehicle “lifts so much anxiety” from her life, because she won’t have to rely on others to get around.
She plans to return to school to become a drug addiction counselor or social worker.
“It’s going to be a really great next chapter of our lives, I’m excited,” Flook said.
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