When Bill Mason, a 45-year-old Cincinnati resident pays a visit to Oxford, he doesn't worry about the looks he gets or the words he hears when people think they're out of his earshot.

He spends most of his day selling candy for the Christian-based charity United Restoration Ministries, and he shrugs off what he calls the "mixed reaction" students sometimes exhibit.

"I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't think this is a real place or that this is a scam we do, but I don't let it bother me," Mason said.

Any Miami student who walks by Shriver Center at any point in the week is well aware of these older men who stand on the corner hocking Blow Pops and other candy for financial support.

"There are those who probably think it's a scam," said senior Josh Jacob. "But I'd say the majority of students see these guys and feel bad, but at the same time they view them as just another obstacle on their way to class."

Last semester, Jacob took it upon himself to write a letter to The Miami Student supporting the Restoration Ministries and the work they do. In the letter he asked students to take a closer look at the people they passed every day and contribute when they could.

"I was just getting sick of people denigrating these guys," Jacob said, explaining why he wrote the letter. "I have a brother who is a recovering coke addict, and to hear certain people with money coming out of their pores talking about these guys like they're the greedy ones is upsetting."

The United Restoration Ministries, rest assured, is no scam. The men who come to Oxford represent only the Cincinnati chapter of a national program dedicated to helping victims of drug and alcohol abuse recover their lives through the application of Christian principles.

The program is free to anyone who needs help and involves nine months in a group home followed by a program that helps individuals find a job and a temporary residence. Because it is a Christian organization, the Restoration Ministries receives almost no government money, and therefore relies on these donations of a dollar at a time as their sole financial support.

"It saved my life," said Chris Giannamore, 34. "If I hadn't found this place I'd be dead or in a situation where I wished I was dead. They opened their doors to me. All I cared about was that it was a free place to stay."

Giannamore's life cannot be easily categorized as the typical drug addiction narrative. A Cincinnati native, he graduated from Xavier University.

"Somehow from there I ended up smoking crack," Giannamore said. "And then next thing I know, I'm 27 years old and out on the street. It took everything from me."

Giannamore now works as an administrator for the Restoration Church and has been doing so ever since he beat his addictions more than seven years ago.

Mason's story is similar. After graduating from Ball State University in 1994 with a degree in speech/communication, he became heavily involved with drugs and alcohol.

"My life wasn't supposed to go that way," Mason said. "But it did. And people need to realize that no matter who you are, you're never invincible."

Mason admits he was by no means looking to find God. Like Giannamore, he needed a place to say.

"Spirituality was the last thing I was after," Mason said. "I just wanted off of drugs. And then I was able to do that through God, by realizing that God has a living power."

James Buckley, 35, is new to the program. He's been living in the church for two months and already feels like he's getting a second chance. He's battled addictions before and explains that the power of substance abuse is difficult to describe to those who have never been there.

"It's an amazing stranglehold," Buckley said. "You hate what it's doing to you, what it's doing to the people you love, but it has you and you're almost powerless. It's impossible to understand if you've never lived through it."

Buckley, Mason and Giannamore are three examples of success within the program. Giannamore admits that the Restoration Ministries certainly do not succeed in every case, but that this is usually the result of the individual and not the program.

"It's the same as any program designed to battle an addiction," Giannamore said. "If you don't apply the principles, it won't work."

None of these men make any mistake about what those principles involve.

"It's about developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," Buckley said. "It's about trusting that the power of Christ can make you a productive individual with importance in society."

Admitting that other recovery programs operate without the use of religion, Mason remains adamant that for the Restoration Ministries, the power of God is helping them change lives.

"I realize this isn't the only way," Mason said. "But for me, it was the way. This is what did it. This is what turned my life around."

For those who do succeed, they assert that the result is nothing short of salvation. Perhaps this is why Mason can so easily dismiss whatever negative attitudes he encounters on a campus like Miami's.

"I saw the cartoon in the paper," he said, referring to an editorial cartoon in The Miami Student that depicted a member of the Ministries asking for money while holding a gun to the head of a college co-ed. "Some people will see that and think this isn't real, but my feeling is that there are enough good people out there to accomplish any task."