Words by Tess Becker
What we go through in life can shape us for better or worse. The lessons we take from the things we go through define us as people. As Mewtwo once said at the end of the Pokemon Movie, “it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”
No person meets that definition better than someone like Kim Carter.
Kim had a troubled childhood and upbringing featuring drug use, incarceration, and bouts with homelessness. But she took those experiences and turned them into advocacy: a pardon from the Governor, a successful foundation, several awards, and parts of her life story being told by Academy Award winners Jennifer Hudson and Taraji P. Henson.
A life dedicated to charity
It’s hard to put into words all the things that Kim has done since turning her life around, but her two largest projects are with the Time for Change Foundation and the Center for Housing Advancement and Motivational Projects, or CHAMP. There she serves as the ambassador and founder, and President & CEO respectively.
Speaking on her early life she highlights some of the trauma she experienced and how it shaped her. “As I grew up, I never had any therapeutic services, no outlet to really talk about those buildings and you know, not having a process to heal from that," Kim tells Smiley News.
As she was cycling in and out of incarceration, she came across an opportunity that would change her life, a program called Forever Free. “I finally received therapy in this program,” Kim says. That program led to her pursuing a drug program. Those few opportunities opened doors for her so that she could try and find a better life, and that was something that she wanted to do for other women.
“I found that there were other women who share those same experiences, and I was able to impart some hope into them, and then that became the beacon of light that I needed and it became my calling,” Kim says.
To answer that calling, she launched the Time for Change Foundation in 2002.
“Since 2002, we've helped over 1700 women with self sufficiency, was started off as one six bit shelter is now 19 different locations throughout Southern California,” Kim says.
“We have about 370 children from foster care reunited back with their moms and we continue to provide an array of supportive services that's customized to meet the needs of these women.”
The programs are wide-reaching and diverse, offering services for just about anything someone down on their luck might need.
“We have our own drug and alcohol counseling. We have therapeutic services. We have a parenting finance education money management, and we have housing, we have childcare, we have an array of case management and parenting programs that help women reunite with their children to bond with their children and to really be able to become those girls best parents.”
The next project she’s working on is an expansion for the Time for Change Foundation called B-BOP (Black – Brown Opportunities for Profit Center). The center looks to help people explore entrepreneurship and innovation.
“It's going to be a place for black and brown women to be able to come in and create a life where they can be in touch with their own economic future,” Kim says. “So we're going to be in there making products innovating creating apps, innovating elevating it at what can we do, what can we reinvent?”
“I always tell people the light bulb was built by Thomas Edison, but that wasn't the last light bulb that was made. So there's so much that we can continue to do and we just keep the lights on.”
