Become a Transformer

"My life was a mess. I would always get in trouble and anger my parents by doing something stupid and uncalled for. My mother and I would always get in arguments over the stupidest things too, like not washing my dishes or cleaning my laundry, one night was really bad though. My mother and I got into an argument because my room wasn’t cleaned, even though she asked me to clean it multiple times throughout the week. She yelled at me for hours and hours, all I wanted was for her to leave me alone so I could clean the room in peace but she wouldn’t.

Eventually I got so mad that I threatened to hit my mother. She went down stairs and told my step father what I did and we got into a wrestle match, which I lost. Afterwards my mother kicked me out of the house. I thought my life was over, I thought that this was the worst that it could possibly get and that there was no coming back from this. Until one day my mom signed me up for a program that changed my life. At first, I hated the thought of signing up for it, and to be honest I didn’t want to go. 

​The first day I went there, I met this hilarious black woman from New Jersey named La Donna Harris. She insured my mother and I that we were in the right place, and that I would be a better person. She told me that there was no going back, I could only move forward from here. When my mother and I left I was happy and excited about what would come next. About a week or so later I was assigned to a mentor named Curtis Harris, and oh man he was the greatest person I have ever met.

Mr.  Harris always made me laugh, and it felt like he was part of my family. The advice he gave me, I will always cherish. I'm just glad that I met him because he turned my life around. Jump forward a few years, and I just graduated high school. I received my diploma, and I'm off to college in a month.

I couldn’t have done any of this without my loving parents, Mr. Harris, and the TLC. If it weren't for them, who knows where I'd be. The Transforming Life Center is a place that can turn your life around and even give you a new family. With them, anything can happen. If they turned me around, think what they can do to you."

​Joshua Ebanks (Mentee)