This is Christopher Smith, he actually never told us his name, he told us he couldn’t remember it, but he said to call him smiles, it was the name the streets gave him. Christopher was born in Kansas, his mom was a drunk and his did left before he was born. He was put in foster care at two years old and ended up in six different homes until he was fifteen, that’s when he gave up. He noticed that no one wanted him in their home, so he left everything and turned to the streets. He took a bag with some clothes and some spare change he had saved up. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

He headed to the streets knowing no one. He took a bus to Missouri where he found a spot under a bridge to live. He went around daily to the stores that were nearby asking for food and spare change. Some days he got lucky and had food to fill him up, other days he starved. Smiles told me one of his worst days was during the winter where it was snowing outside and he was almost freezing. He said he found a store that was blowing out warm air through the air conditioner, so he settled there for the night. He woke up with man yelling and shooting ice cold water from a hose to wake him up. He told me he almost froze to death. About this time he was twenty smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. He got on a bus and decided he was going as far away as he could from Missouri. He traveled until the bus hit a stop, he didn’t care where he was going. He ended up in North Carolina in a small town named Boone. Right as he got there he met another homeless man named Gorgy who became his friend. They lived together on the street. They slept near a gas station and when daylight came they packed everything up and would go around town asking for favors. Gorgy was the one who gave Christopher his nickname Smiles, he said he never smiled, so he gave him that name so he would smile more. Through time Smiles started meeting other homeless men around his town which all became his friends. Every night they would share any food they had and play cards with a deck they found in the trash one night. They were the family he never had and the streets became his home.

I met smiles one day going to school. He was thirty six, however he looked older. He stopped me while I was walking with a cigarette in his mouth and asked if I had any spare change. His odor reached me before he did. I thought to myself, if he’s hungry, he should go find a job, but at the same time I knew he needed the money more than I did, so I asked if he would have breakfast with me and he agreed, we talked and he told me about himself and everything he had been through. Halfway through him talking I started crying and gave him a hug, everything he said made me appreciate everything I had and how no one should ever take anything for granted. He told me his dream was to go back to school. He said when he arrived in North Carolina he tried to go but he had no documentation and everyone just ignored him. He told me he wanted to occupy himself and learn. That same day I went to school and talked to my friends for us to start a fundraiser to help him out. We started posting things on social media and it became huge. Twenty nine days later we were able to get all of his documentations and register him for school; this was when we were finally able to tell him his real name. We also put him in a shelter. He gave me the biggest hug and smile.

Now Smiles attends school every day where he has learned to paint and make art out of wood, so he goes out and sells it on the streets. He has a roof over his head and food to feed him every day, however every weekend he goes out to the streets to see his friends and play card games.