Thrift store aims to fund addiction recovery

Thrift store aims to fund addiction recovery
Lori Feeney

Larry Skrant of Strasburg is opening a new thrift shop in Bolivar he hopes will support a halfway house he is establishing in honor of his late daughter, Victoria.

                        

The last time Larry Skrant spoke to his daughter, Victoria, he told her he hoped she was turning things around. Victoria and a friend then slipped away from the halfway house where they were living in Cleveland and died of an overdose of straight Fentanyl.

His last words to his daughter still haunt Skrant, who regrets chastening her instead of saying, “I love you.” Hoping to save other addicts, Skrant is opening a thrift store at 358 Edgebrook Blvd. in Bolivar. His goal is to have sales from the store help establish and sustain a halfway house for recovering addicts he will name Victoria’s House in honor of his late daughter.

A recovering addict himself, Skrant has an interesting story to tell. “I was a drug addict and a three-time convicted felon,” he said. “The last sentence I received was for 20 years. The judge said I’d either be too old to cause trouble when I got out or I’d die in there, and he didn’t care which happened. The sad part is I didn’t care either.”

Skrant said he received a letter from one of four daughters about a year into his prison sentence. “It was written in red crayon, and all it said was, ‘Dear Daddy, my name is Stephanie. Do you remember me?’ That broke me. It put me on my knees, and I cried out to God in my jail cell. I felt a peace come over me that I never had before.”

Skrant began regularly attending church in prison and studying the Bible. Following an early release in 2001, Skrant worked as a shipping clerk at Inflatable Images in Brunswick and became an ordained minister. In 2004 he went into the ministry full-time, later establishing his own Christ-centered recovery program called Addicts of the Cross, which he has taken into prisons in Ohio.

The store

The Addicts of the Cross Thrift Shop will sell donated gently used or new merchandise. The shop features clothing for women, children and men, although it is in need of more men’s clothing donations. Shoes, purses and household goods fill racks and line the walls throughout the two-story shop.

Household items include dishes, lamps, some furniture and a collection of moonstone glassware from the 1940s. All proceeds will go toward Victoria’s House.

“We’ve got a lot here already, but we need more donations,” Skrant said. “I’d really like to get more men’s clothing, household items and odd, novelty-type merchandise people can’t find other places.”

The dreadful life of an addict

“When you’re an addict, you’re like a black hole,” Skrant said. “You destroy everything that’s near and dear to you.”

Skrant said when Victoria was a child, she would hold his face in her hands and make him look right at her when she spoke. “I remember her pleading with me not to go back to prison when she was 8 years old. But I did.”

Skrant said he and Victoria stayed in touch through frequent letters while he was in prison.

As an adult, Victoria moved to Detroit. “A couple years ago, I got a call from her, and she said, ‘Dad, I need to come home. I’m sick.’ I went to Detroit to pick her up, and she weighed about 90 pounds. In fact, when she was in bed, you couldn’t even tell there was a person there. That’s how thin she was.”

Skrant thought about opening a halfway house before Victoria’s death, hoping to monitor her more closely after several stints in rehab programs didn’t seem to work for her. He said he developed the Addicts of the Cross program based on the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholics for Christ.

“The main difference is an emphasis on the power of God for those who come to the cross,” Skrant said. “I can only share my own experience and what worked for me.”

The Addicts of the Cross recovery group meets at the thrift store location on Tuesdays at 7 p.m., with pizza served at 6:30 p.m. The nondenominational group is open to Christians and non-Christians alike.

“I realize we’re not going to be able to save everybody,” Skrant said, “but I know we’ll save a few, and they’ll go out and save a few more.”

Grateful to be in recovery, Skrant said, “My grandkids don’t have to remember their grandpa was a three-time felon. They’re going to remember he fed orphans in Africa and helped others. I believe God can make something beautiful out of the worst messes we make in our lives.”


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