The video documents the 2016 Harvest Center graduation, a celebratory event highlighting the Center’s mission to rescue individuals from chronic addiction, homelessness, and unemployment. Multiple speakers—former participants, staff, and partners—share personal testimonies of long‑term sobriety, regained employment, education achievements, and renewed purpose. The Center provides hot meals (32,800 per year), clothing, day shelter, job‑skill training, mental‑health and substance‑abuse counseling, biblical mentoring, and a faith community. Quantitative outcomes are emphasized: 68% of Transformation Program participants secure permanent housing, employment, and community connection; participants saved an average of $3,000 in six months; and over 80 neighbors have completed job‑skill and personal‑development training. Success stories such as Mawena earning an associate’s degree in criminal justice and becoming a security officer illustrate the pathway from homelessness to stable work and societal contribution. The overall narrative frames the Center’s work as a life‑transforming, faith‑driven process that not only provides jobs but restores whole lives.
Chapters
The Harvest Center graduation is a celebration of lives saved.
I was addicted to drugs for 38 years. As of October 5th, I have a year of sobriety.
The folks you see behind me today, 6 months ago weren't even working. And in the past 6 months, they have saved over $3,000 of their own money. I think we ought to thank God for that. We didn't have to raise that money, and nobody gave it. They earned it.
The Harvest Center reaches out to engage the homeless, serving 32,800 hot meals a year with inspirational teaching, clothing if they need it, and day shelter. It's a relatable friendship. 80 neighbors learned job skills and both educational and personal development. 68% of the Transformation Program participants got permanent housing, employment, and a faith community connection. Mawena earned an associate's degree in criminal justice and found her career.
I'm a security officer. Which I absolutely love.
Moena gets up every morning ready for work and puts on that big smile when she puts on her uniform. It's a measure of her success.
I get to speak to people every day, and as they come through the doors, I get to smile and say good morning.
She ultimately wants to help children on the wrong side of the justice system, help them realize there is a better life. The Harvest Center helped transform neighbors like Mawena and Annette and more than a dozen others every year with good stable housing, mental health and substance abuse counseling, biblical training and Christian mentoring, and the ultimate goal, a job.
When you think about the numbers, you got to think about how many people there are in our city currently who aren't working who could be working. That number is about 4,000 to 5,000 people on any given day who are currently also homeless. So that's a big number. Our program drills that down to bring in as many folks as we can and take them through a process so that within 6 months' time they go from homelessness, unemployed, and impoverished to no longer homeless, working a full-time job, and working toward life sustainability. It works. It doesn't just work because somebody gets a job. It works because a life is transformed.
I get to live life again. I get to pay my own bills. I'm happy to go to work. I'm happy to get up.
We're all about customer service, and so we're really— we try to get really high-end quality people. And, you know, I like to get adults, and it's been hard to find them. And so I came across Colin, and we connected and started talking, and he shared with me the vision of the Harvest Center of reintroducing people into society and reestablishing themselves in business and the world. So far, everyone we've had come out of it have been excellent. They're people that are eager to get back into the workforce. They're eager to work again. They want to contribute to society.
The customers make my day. They're— working with the public is just life-changing. It used to be that they could look in my eyes and see my soul, how dirty my soul was. But now it's like they see the love and the joy that I have in my heart.
I've changed as a human being. It's like I'm a new person, and I love this person.
