Cedar Lodge

Ned Powers – Friends Revisited

Posted on 20. Jun, 2006 by mjo in Media

Saskatoon Star Phoenix – Tuesday July 13, 2004

VOLUNTEER SURRENDERS LIFE TO THE LORD

Suzanne Claire Olaski believes in miracles. Her two pet projects are providing food to the needy and Cedar Lodge, a 60 room hotel overlooking Blackstrap Lake where volunteers simultaneously run a treatment facility, house of refuge and a hotel convention centre.

Neither project would have succeeded without Suzanne’s endless faith in God.

“There’s no other way to explain the miracles which picked me off the floor in a health crisis in 1974 and later provided an unbelievable gift, virtually out of nowhere, to help us launch Cedar Lodge.

The Ontario born woman was enlightened by her experiences as a paralegal in Toronto in 1965. “I was old at the age of 18. A close personal friend became a prescription drug user and I became involved in her fight for life. About the same time my employer’s niece became an addict and I was asked to help. I just kept meeting people who were tormented by addictions. It was apparent that people were addicted because of codependency and they were losing touch with reality. I knew the users couldn’t be free as long as their codependency continued.”

As much as she worked to set people free from their addictions, Suzanne was about to face her own battle for life. She met Les Olaski in Calgary, they were married and settled in Saskatoon. “After giving birth to my second son in 1974, I was diagnosed with breast and lymph cancer. In those days, 30 years ago, anyone in that condition was pretty much sent home to die. I was told I may have between three and six months to live and here I was, the mother of two small children.

I was in excruciating pain, curled up in a ball on the floor and I began to talk to God. I told Him if it was His decision that I die, I could be ok with that. Of course, I didn’t understand but I clearly surrendered to His decision. The next morning, I woke up with no pain and no nausea. Within two weeks, I had gained 14 pounds. It was clearly like the scripture that if you ‘lose your life, you will gain it.’ And it was just one in a series of miraculous moments which changed my life,” says Suzanne.

The family moved to Ontario in 1975 and for the next 20 years, she was virtually a transient. She twice lived in Ontario, returned many times to Saskatoon and then embarked on a unique experience of becoming a street worker with Young Voice Mission, a black gospel organization in the heart of Oakland.

“Life in Oakland was full of miracles too. My life was threatened but I survived. I was in the middle of a black community, there was a gun shot every 15 minutes, stores guarded by barbed wire and pit bull terriers, young men were standing outside the liquor stores, seemingly bent on violence.

“I was able to change some of the thinking at the mission. They were giving free meals to the hungry if they attended the service. I told them we should give the free meals first, and then hope they would stay for the service, and that’s exactly how it unfolded”

Suzanne returned to Saskatoon again in 1995 and was working for a small ministry on 20th Street where she began a soup kitchen.

“All that we are doing now could have never begun without Sandra Howarth who was willing with finances and Linda Laird, a champion in the
kitchen.”

Now more than 20 volunteers contribute their time, energy and finances to keep the candle burning.

“When we began our food distribution program, we started with five families and grew to a data base of 1200 names by sheer word of mouth. Yes, there were other agencies. But many needing food could barely walk due to illness or substance abuse and we literally had to go directly TO them. For some, it was just too much to load up the kids on a bus and come downtown to get their supplies.”

Her volunteers filled a major need in Saskatoon, “thanks to unbelievable sponsorship. We also serve ministries in North Battleford, Prince Albert and Big River and visit several reserves.”

The Cedar Lodge Chapter in her life began in 1995. “A friend in Saskatoon told me about the availability of the lodge, which had been built by The Seventh Day Adventists some 25 years earlier. It was sitting idle.”

During three years of negotiations, Suzanne pressed on without money but never lost faith. And then another miracle happend. “Three days prior to closing the agreement that we had finally struck, a woman came forward and said she had been wrestling with the Lord about Cedar Lodge and the Lord had shown her that she was to be the one to give us $100,000.00″

Suzanne had other obstacles to overcome. The pool wasn’t working, water wasn’t flowing into the building, the mortgage payments were high and so were the utilities and the insurance. The volunteers needed food and other necessities to open the building.

As new owners in 1997, we started cleaning and within a month, we had a call from someone who wanted to book a three day retreat for 30 people. We didn’t even know what to charge. The person on the other end of the line said they’d pay us the same price they’d been quoted by a Saskatoon hotel.”

Since then, the lodge has been booked by hundreds of orgnaizaqtions for 1500 events because it has amenities like rooms, banquet facilities, a dining room, indoor swimming pool, an outdoor lake and park attractions. Sunday buffets are now available by reservation. Dinner theater on Fridays and Saturdays are planned in August.

“What we earn as a convention centre permits us to fund our food programs and addictions counselling. We help women in distress or abuse situations, children or families who are victimes of drug and alcohol addiction. Our counsellors are volunteers but professionally trained.”

Suzanne has been a contributor to Saskatoon and district life in many ways. She was co-chair of the Canadian Cancer Society in Saskatoon, an area co-ordinator for United Way, a participant in the founding of the Saskatoon Womens’ Network, among others. She was a finalist in the lifetime achievement category at the 2004 YWCA Women of Distinction awards dinner.

She once challenged for the Progressive Conservative nomination in Saskatoon East, during the Brian Mulroney emergence in 1983, lost out to Don Ravis but recalls “it was one of the largest constitutency nomination conventions ever held in Saskatchewan.”

Her two sons are close at hand. David lives with his wife and three children at Cedar Lodge where he assists with audio visual work and computer graphics. Michael operates a computer graphics business in Saskatoon and participates in web design and marketing needs for the lodge.

“People ask us why we do this on a volunteer basis? If you came with us to deliver food, you would know immediately. People are hungry, they live in places without furniture and when we bring in the boxes of food, you see relief in the eyes of the parents, gratitude in their hearts and great big smiles from the children. The work is hard but the rewards are incredible.”