Soon, a charitable organisation in North Texas will be able to assist even more moms and kids in escaping homelessness and poverty.
On Friday, the first-of-its-kind Centre for Transforming Lives facility opened in southeast Fort Worth.
The centre provides economic mobility services, early childhood education, counselling, and housing support to 3,000 mothers and children annually. The centre will be able to assist more people with the new Riverside campus.
In its first year of operation, the organisation anticipates serving 30% more families.
In Tarrant County, one-third of single mothers with children under five live in poverty. In certain ZIP codes, that percentage can reach 71%.
“And our job is to address those, to get them out of poverty into prosperity, to stabilise, to train, and then help launch them into successfully independent women, children, and families,” stated Scott Lydick, who serves as the Centre for Transforming Lives’ board president.
Expanded access to high-quality early childhood education, mother and child therapy, housing assistance, and a full range of economic opportunity services, such as a commercial kitchen, makerspace, and business incubators, will be available to participants. These services will assist mothers who are looking for primary or secondary sources of family income.
“I received business coaching, financial coaching, and then was able to save up and get a grant that ended up helping me when I opened my brick and mortar,”Bermarie Winston, owner and operator of the bakery Blush & Whisk stated.
As a single mother with two children under two, she attributes the success of the bakery to the center’s Level Up program.
“When someone wants to open a business like that and chase that kind of a dream, there are a lot of potential barriers or challenges that might stop them and keep them from going after that,” Winston stated. “And I think a space like this is really helping tear down some of those walls and giving people more opportunity and more hope to do that.”
The organisation truly lives up to its name as a ray of hope.
Tanisha Thomas, who connected with the Centre for Transforming Lives during a challenging period a few years ago, remarked, “The Centre for Transforming Lives really transforms lives.”
A few years ago, Thomas lost both her job and her home. With a one-year-old infant to support, she stayed on the couches of various acquaintances.
“It was insurmountable pressure on me,” she stated. “I was depressed. Ashamed. And, depressed. Did I say depressed? I was just at the end of my rope. I was really at the end of myself. I was suicidal, honestly.”
Her path was altered, however, by a call to the Centre for Transforming Lives.
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“I stayed there and received the counseling and the free childcare,” Thomas stated. “I went from suicidal to a student.”
Now that she and her kid have a secure place to live, Thomas is pursuing her studies to become a counsellor.
According to the Centre for Transforming Lives, the community saves over $20,000 annually for every family that successfully moves from homelessness to self-sufficiency.
The group helped 205 families leave shelters and the streets in 2024, and 81% of them were able to find stable housing. An estimated $4.1 million will be saved by the community.
