Hello I’m Malakiah banks, I’m 17 years old in the 11th grade and I go to Manchester high school recently I got my first truck. I got it on my own with no help. I sold my very first car in order to be able to afford the truck , I got the truck from my father. It was sitting for 2 years due to transmission issues so when I sold my car and payed my father for the truck I took it from where it was sitting all those years and gave it a bath and cleaned it up real nice. Due to the transmission issues I spent around $500.00 trying to fix it myself which it did work for about a month then one day I was coming home from school and the transmission went out . So I set out on a mission to fix my truck. I worked countless days for hours working at Unique Construction and Electric to put my truck in the shop to get the transmission rebuilt. Friday January 16th, 2026 i got the call my truck was ready and i could come pay and pick it up. I payed 2400 cash. That same weekend on Sunday January 18th 2026 at 8:04 pm I was in a car accident In Columbus ga coming back from Walmart to go to one of my best friends birthday party. What a mood killer right! I was going across Airport Thruway intersection to get back on I-185 and a unregistered car ran a red light and hit me in the front passenger bumper and totaled my truck. When it happened I got out of the truck and seen how bad the damage was I couldn’t do nothing but drop to the ground and ball my eyes out. I was hurt , discouraged , broken I felt like I let my self down I could barely talk when police officers were asking me questions. I had to pay $320 to get my truck towed back to my house in Manchester. My mother had to come all the way from our home in Manchester ga to where I was in Columbus ga to get me and the three other people that I had in my truck with me and let me say I’ve never seen someone get to somewhere so fast like she did but she did !! My mother had to drop us 4 off to where we were going in the first place for my friends birthday . The whole ride back to my friends birthday it didn’t feel the same no more something I worked so hard for just got taken away from me in the blink of a eye. I was so upset and hurt it was hard for me to even hold my composure. When we got to my friends I couldn’t do anything but just go in the room and lay down and be depressed because I was devastated because my hopes and dreams on something I worked so hard on were gone. Everyday I go out my front door I have a constant reminder of what I had but I also thank God that im ok and so was everyone else. It has taken me some time to decide to come here but I am coming here today as a young gentleman thats trying to get the money to get himself another vehicle and back on his feet.