How My life Changed, By Joseph.

My life changed a lot because of Monarch.

I was born in Lompoc, Calif. in 1998, but when I was two years old, my family and I had to leave the U.S. to go Mexico, because my dad went to jail for doing illegal stuff. Then my mom started to have economic problems.

When we were in Mexico, my mom started to do some illegal stuff because in Mexico, if there's a woman with four kids, it's super hard to keep on going with life.

Then my dad got out of jail but my mom got caught by the police crossing to the U.S. with illegal things. I was eight years old then.

I was lucky that my dad came out of jail on time; if not, I think I would have been in foster care. Then we went into poverty. Sometimes we didn't have money to eat, sometimes in order to eat we had to go all the way to my aunt's house. She used to give me money to eat.

Whebn my mom got out of jail and she violated probation and was scared to go back to the U.S. because she didn't want to get sent back to jail, even though she was a citizen of the U.S.

Three years passed and she did have to go back to jail and I went to live with my aunt. Then my mom came back and took me and my little sister to the United States.

We were living in a shelter named Rescue Mission and we were on the waiting list for a shetler named Cortez Hill for two months. September 6, 2011 I enrolled in Monarch for the first time.

Since then, I'm pretty much happy because when I came I didn't even have shows and Monarch gave me some. I only had a little bit of clothes. Monarch also gave me a bus pass.

Now I'm much better. I live pretty far from Monarch, but I still want to go to Monarch. Monarch made me understand art, Monarch made me smarter, it made me want to play the guitar. Some of my friends who are students at Monarch taught me how to skate.

This is how Monarch changed my life.