This is a fundraiser for a youth in need sponsored by The Free Little Food Pantry located in Springfield, Missouri. We are dedicated to exercising the virtue of charity and extending outreach to those humbly seeking stability and are in need of support through the trying times in life.

On November 16th, 2025, Trinity reached out to us as a desperate cry for help after seeing a post of the food pantry delivery I was providing for the surrounding area of Springfield. He had asked for help with food and decided to share his circumstances with me in confidence.

Here is his story in his own words:

Hello my name is Trinity, I am 17 years old, turning 18 on November 23rd. My dream is simple but powerful: to earn my high school diploma, enroll in a JUCO program, and work toward a basketball scholarship. Basketball has always been my escape, my motivation, and the one thing that keeps me believing in a future beyond the pain/ suffering I’ve lived through.

I grew up with no stable support, facing homelessness and house-hopping just to survive. Both of my parents struggle with drug addiction, and I’ve had to grow up without the guidance, security, or love that most kids get at home. I was born with drugs in my system (pure coke), neglected physically and mentally, and I’ve been fighting from the moment I came into this world.

Even now, I worry every day about where I’m going to sleep, what I’m going to eat, and how to keep going. I don’t have money for clothes, transportation, school needs, or even basic stability. But despite all that, I refuse to give up. I don’t want to become another kid who ends up on a T-shirt, in the streets, or lost in anger & trauma or even in jail. I want to break the cycle I was born into.

Basketball is my chance, my escape, my way out. If I can get into a JUCO, I can work toward earning a D3, D2, or even D1 scholarship, maybe even play overseas, and one day chase my ultimate dream: to make it to the NBA, and help stop my family's bad habits. I know it won’t be easy but I’m willing to outwork any and everyone, I just need support to get started.

This fundraiser will help me with the essentials I need to survive and stay on track:

Stable housing

Food

Clothing

Transportation

School costs

Application or program fees needed to get into JUCO

Every donation no matter how small brings me one step closer to safety, stability, and the future I’ve been fighting for my whole life. I’m asking for help because I believe I can be more than what I was born into. I want to become someone I can be proud of. Not what my dad thinks I'ma become.

Thank you for reading my story and for supporting a young person trying to rewrite his destiny. - Tman"

Without consistent support and stability, Trinity has managed to maintain motivation, sobriety, upstanding character, and passion.

All funds will go directly to Trinity's education, food, hygiene items, housing, transportation, any needs for survival, and to reach his goal in receiving his diploma as well as pursue his dream in playing college ball.

Let's come together as a community to support Trinity and his determination to end the cycle of trauma, poverty, abandonment and neglect the world has shown him.

Thank you for reading