Ted was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and left home at 14.

I grew up with a single mother that had 3 boys and 1 girl. My mother worked 3 jobs and left the younger ones in the care of my older brother. Things were always disruptive, chaotic, and scary. Looking back now I can see why I am drawn to children, teens, and young adults with abuse issues. I spent 3 years in grade 7. My first year I was being bullied by a kid and after a few months of coming home bruised and bloodied without the schools help, my mom took me out of school to be home schooled. This did not work out due to issues within the family unit. After a failed year mom placed me back into the school system. The second year proved to be another fail when my gym teacher thought it would be in his best interest to call me a name based on my skin color. There was a school walk out. I brought this to my mom's attention and got the response of “turn the other cheek”. Well the short story to this is that the teacher was not fired and he was my gym teacher that whole year. When I also failed that year, he was my computer class teacher the next year again. I left home and went as far from there as I could - I was 14. I moved to Wolfville N.S. After multiple run ins with the Principal and being almost expelled and almost a 4th year in grade 7 my homeroom teacher Mrs. Ross took me aside, looked me in the eye and said “you know you are going nowhere and you have the choice”. It was at that point she committed to spending everyday after school with me and teaching me subjects and that if I passed the test, she would personally see that I passed for the year. This was one of my first commitments and feelings of accomplishments. I quit school after grade 10 in order to feed and put a roof over my head. I spent the next 14 to 16 years working job to job and gaining experience but lacking a specific skill or satisfaction. Never during my whole work career had anyone said ”you are really good at this maybe you should hone in on this skill”. In 2006, my girlfriend and I of 12 years at the time decided to adopt her cousin's daughter who was put in foster care due to her mother's life choices. It was at this point I decided to put everything I thought I dreamed of aside to support and become a father to this little girl that possibly had the same upbringing I had. I have 3 girls and a wife now that depend on me to support them. Never once have I ever let what happened to me in the past reflect on what I was doing in the future. Fast forward a few months and you now have me begging the Unemployment Office to help me. They sent me to John Howards in Moncton. At first I brought all the school issues and my lack of respect into this class due to my experiences. It took me only an hour to realize that I was blessed with another Mrs. Ross, in the form of a man, Mr. Ray Violette. Ray had done what only 1 other person was able to do in the school system - gain my respect. I have come a long way with the guidance of Ray and I will always be indebted to both Mrs. Ross and Mr. Violette and will carry their teachings with me for the rest of my life. For the first time I can actually help my oldest daughter with her homework. This has been positive for me. I also started going to a career counsellor and discovered that Social Development is my top strength. I have since worked tirelessly to investigate more in this field and what this means to me. What it means is a chance to change what I experienced in life for others. To provide a place where kids/teens/young adults can go to find their skills and a place that will work with them to help them reach this goal and possibly show them a skill within themselves that they did not know they had. A place that will place these individuals back into the community as respected individuals. This will be a place where we will co-ordinate with places like John Howards and other educational avenues, colleges/universities. We will work with them to ensure that they have the tools and abilities to reach for their success and also help others. This is in the form of a youth center in Moncton. We will go to them and their homes and work with the parents to ensure that they are building on this skill as well as promoting it. This will be built in honor of all those who reached out to me and made a difference and to pay it forward. Instead of them working job to job and possibly getting lost in the work field as I did they will work and spend their well needed energy on what they want. This will be a one stop shop; you come to my center and hopefully leave with a clear goal and the tools to get what you want. We will create a community to help out the youth, our future! Right now we spend a lot of funds on "after the fact". After already being in prison, being an addict, unemployed, abused etc., then the community wants to help out but what we need to ask is …. How much are we investing in the early stages? For example, we already have youth centres in Moncton but it is more tuned to keeping kids off the streets and away from the eyes of the public. But what are these centers doing to teach these youth to be respectable, helping, and key advocates of our community. I want to make real difference with the youth.

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