It was during a canoe trip in Algonquin Park three years ago that Andrew Lloyd first met Ryan Hawkyard. “Ryan and I clicked right away,” recalled Lloyd, who had been medically released from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2019 because of post-traumatic stress disorder. “He was just helping to create this program (for military veterans) that seems to be big in the States and in Britain, but Canada didn’t really have a program like it.
” That program was Soldiers in the Arts, which uses arts-centred workshops to help military personnel transition to civilian life. On Sunday, two days after Military Appreciation Day, Kingstonians will have the chance to see for themselves what SITA does. There will be a free showcase of theatre pieces created by Kingston-area veterans titled “Our Stories,” the culmination of workshops dating back to May.
It runs from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 560 on Montreal Street and is free to attend.
Lloyd will be there Sunday, as will program co-ordinator Hawkyard, who had told him about SITA and how it might help him. “I don’t feel like I really started the actual healing until I went on that (canoe) trip” sponsored by the True Patriot Love Foundation, “met some fellow vets and started doing the Soldiers in the Arts,” he said. A medic who had been deployed to places such as Iraq, Lloyd returned to his hometown after leaving his release from the military at age 34.
“I knew that Kingston was the right spot for me t.