Mackenzie remembers the moment everything changed.
Taylor had just given birth to their twin daughters, the two youngest of their girls. She was carrying the overwhelming weight of parenting while Mackenzie struggled under the grip of addiction.
“She asked me for help after I’d been out all night,” Mackenzie says. “I enjoyed being a dad — and the fact that I couldn’t be hurt.”
As he looked at his daughters, Mackenzie began thinking about his own childhood — drugs and alcohol at 9 years old, homeless by 14. “I was a street kid,” he says, “sleeping in parks or bushes.”
For the first time, he realized his daughters could grow up facing the same instability and pain if nothing changed. Taylor had already left addiction behind, but she was battling depression, anxiety, and anger while trying to hold everything together for their family.
“I was so clouded by it that I couldn’t even think clearly,” she says. Then they both lost their jobs.
“We were pretty much homeless,” says Mackenzie.
Taylor stayed with her mom while Mackenzie slept in the car. Their relationship became strained under the pressure, but the hardest part was watching their daughters wonder where their father was each night.
“They’d cry for him,” Taylor remembers. “It was hard to watch them miss him. We wanted to be a whole family. Not parts of a family.”
Desperate for change, Mackenzie and Taylor decided to take what they called a “trust fall” with God and come to Orange County Rescue Mission (OCRM) — where compassionate supporters like you helped pave the way toward healing and transformation.
Just days before entering the program, they got baptized and married.
The road wasn’t easy. Taylor temporarily stepped away from the program while working through anger management challenges, while Mackenzie stayed at Village of Hope and continued caring for their daughters.
“The thought of not being able to see my kids because I was angry scared me,” Taylor says. “I came back ready to change.”
Through prayer, counseling, therapy, anger management, and the support of the OCRM community, their family slowly began rebuilding.
“I don’t feel riddled with anxiety anymore,” Taylor says. “And Mackenzie? He’s more present — with the kids and himself. He seems whole again for the first time. There’s no missing piece.”
Because of your generosity, Mackenzie was able to take online classes and earn a certificate in web development through the University of San Diego. “I ended up building a volunteer management system for OCRM [as my class project],” he says.
Now, he is employed full-time and preparing for the day when the family can transition to the next phase of their journey out of homelessness. Taylor serves as a lead cook in OCRM’s kitchen, where she’s become known for her tortellini pasta and her belief that “a hot meal can be life-changing.”
Today, Mackenzie and Taylor are building a new future together rooted in faith, healing, and stability — and their daughters are growing up in a safe and loving environment because friends like you chose to care.
Mackenzie adds, “‘Thank you’ wouldn’t even be enough. It’s not ‘Thank you for giving.’ It’s ‘Thank you for helping me get my life back together.’”
This summer, families like Mackenzie and Taylor’s are continuing to rebuild their lives at OCRM. And because of caring supporters like you, the children here look forward to safe, joy-filled days filled with meals, learning, adventure, and the simple opportunity to just be kids.
