The video documents the Harvest Center’s graduation ceremony, showcasing personal testimonies from clients and staff that illustrate the center’s role in transforming lives affected by long‑term substance addiction. Former addicts recount decades of drug use, recent sobriety milestones, and how the Center’s provision of hot meals, emergency shelter, housing, mental‑health and substance‑abuse counseling, job training, education, and Christian mentoring enabled them to regain stability, earn degrees, secure employment, and rebuild families. Staff and volunteers describe the Center’s daily operations, the financial savings clients achieve, and the sense of purpose derived from helping others. The narrative highlights the Center’s limited physical space and announces a forthcoming larger facility on Freedom Drive, framing it as a movement to expand community impact. The video concludes with a call for continued support, emphasizing that the graduation marks both an ending and a new beginning for future participants.
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.
A year of sobriety, a family reunited, and a future of hope.
It's been rough before I came to the Harvest Center, and I thank the Harvest Center from the bottom my heart for giving me this opportunity to become the person I am today.
I want to give y'all some encouragement.
Gwen's children watched the graduation with pride. After their brother died, Gwen was crippled with grief and close to giving up on life. Now she plans to finish school and start a career helping the elderly.
I'm happy for her. She made it, you know.
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 it.
We didn't have to raise that money, and nobody gave it. They earned it.
Many people that come here have been on drugs for years and years and years, and that's our purpose, is to get them to get their lives changed, transition from the way they are Transitioning to a better life, the Harvest Center's mission starts with engagement.
The Harvest Center serves a hot meal to 800 people a week with inspirational teaching, clothing if they need it, and day shelter.
I want to thank God for giving me so much. I mean, he told me that he would elevate me, and that's what he's done. He put people in my life that I People in my path that just helped me take that, take the steps on this journey, and I feel like I've gotten so far with the help of the Harvest Center.
Thank yous for bringing joy back to a life after devastation.
I didn't see it coming. That's where it pretty much started with me losing my job. I would literally walk here I'd find myself here all night. Next thing you know, it's 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. I just got up one morning, I was hungry, walked all the way to the Harvest Center, and that turned into me getting off this bench and having a home.
Kenneth met volunteers and staffers who relate to clients with mentoring, job training, and continuing education. That's how 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. She knows from experience a tough childhood.
In order to feel I started plying myself with alcohol.
She was told she was worthless. She never felt safe.
I was drinking and smoking marijuana and popping pills and drinking cough syrup, being desperate and like literally at the end, feeling that if nothing else happens, I'm gonna die.
The Harvest Center helped transform Marwena and 17 others like her this year with housing, mental health and substance abuse counseling, job search and placement, biblical training, and Christian mentoring.
When they brought me here, they pretty much erased all that hardship I had to go through as far as where am I laying my head down to sleep. They said, Kenny, we got you. Let's get you a home first. After that, let's get you focused on what you need to do.
The shelter keeps me not worried about sleeping on the sidewalk or where am I going to lay my head. Providing that helps a person to start to realize that I can make it. I can do this. I don't have to worry about being hungry.
It gives me purpose and hope to know that if we can make this difference in 5 people's lives in 6 months, can you imagine how much more we could do if we were in a place where there were no limits? If we were in a place where there were no obstacles?
One obstacle for the Harvest Center has been room to grow, but there is soon to be a new facility open on Freedom Drive.
So what our new location represents really is a movement, a bigger movement to change more lives and affect our community in a greater way. So when we talk about the Harvest Center, it's not about food and the building. It's about people, right? It's about a culture, an atmosphere where people feel welcome.
Their lives are part of ours. We serve them, but we also become their friends.
This graduation day is over, but in this crowd, there is the next class of recruits. People ready to change their lives and accept the guidance and love offered at the Harvest Center.
This is not the end. There are others, there are more in this city whose lives God wants to transform.
I'm on my way back to where I was, and this time I'll be better, a whole lot better.
I've changed as a human being. It's like I'm, I'm a new person, and I love this person.
