{"id":37973,"date":"2023-08-10T13:48:14","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T18:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/frederic-samuels-testimonial-quebec-city-day-centre-2019\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T13:58:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:58:34","slug":"frederic-samuels-testimonial-quebec-city-day-centre-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/frederic-samuels-testimonial-quebec-city-day-centre-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Portage was the best gift life had ever given me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

The Mechanics of a Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is my story:<\/p>\n

I discovered my passion for mechanics very early in life and in a rather unusual way as I started collecting and repairing dozens of old bicycles of every type when I was still just a child. At the same time, I was dealing with bullying at school and the fact that I didn’t have a father figure to help me through it. As a result, I developed toxic relationships in my attempts to feel \u00ab\u00a0cool\u00a0\u00bb and finally gain acceptance. In an insidious, almost natural manner, those \u00ab\u00a0friendships\u00a0\u00bb led me to start using.<\/p>\n

My mother had trouble making ends meet and so I went back and forth between youth centres and foster families. Once I was of legal age and free of any mandatory supervision, I unfortunately started using a lot more. I had financial troubles and my world now revolved essentially around consuming and selling drugs. After three psychotic episodes, I hit rock bottom; I had reached the end of the road, or at least that road.<\/p>\n

One day, I suddenly remembered how I had collected bikes as a child and I decided to hold onto what had been a genuine passion for me. That’s when I decided to go to Portage.<\/p>\n

Going into therapy at Portage was the best gift life had ever given me<\/em>. I went from being completely destroyed to rebuilding myself over time, with a lot of help from Portage.<\/p>\n

Last December, I received over $5000 worth of tools from Portage and two major foundations in recognition of my journey and to help me with my work as a mechanic.<\/p>\n

Today, I have several life projects, including specializing in performance and auto racing mechanics. The road ahead is bright and beautiful, and I found it after a long journey paved with obstacles, potholes and dead-ends.<\/p>\n

I’m moving forward on the highway to success!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you Portage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Frederic-Samuel, Day Centre for Adults, Qu\u00e9bec City, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n\t

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The Mechanics of a Life This is my story: I discovered my passion for mechanics very early in life and in a rather unusual way as I started collecting and repairing dozens of old bicycles of every type when I was still just a child. At the same time, I was dealing with bullying at… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":37968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonial"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37973"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44724,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37973\/revisions\/44724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}