Melvin Collins is a resident and homeowner in the Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Community, Soldier On’s 38-member permanent housing cooperative in Pittsfield, Massachusetts that provides formerly homeless veterans with safe and affordable homes. Collins works full time in the facility’s kitchen, helps out with Soldier On’s annual pasta dinner to benefit The Berkshire Eagle's Santa Fund, and anywhere else he's needed. To learn about the many ways the nonprofit Soldier On helps veterans, check out their website or attend this year’s BerkshireSPEAKS event on Sunday, Sept. 18 in Great Barrington where its CEO, John Downing, will give a presentation. I’m originally from Alabama, but I have family that live in Springfield, Mass. That’s where I was living four years ago when I went to court and was locked up. I was a drug dealer, but I’d also become an addict; I was smoking cocaine and it’s easy to become addicted, it sneaks up on you. I changed my life up here. When I was growing up, the idea was that only fools and knuckleheads worked, so I thought it would be too hard for me, but it was easy. If you want to take your life back, you have to give something of yourself. Working here in the kitchen changed my lifestyle; I feel like a better person.
You got to take what you can out of here, because it’s all on you. It’s easy to mess up because nobody can make you do anything. Are you a follower or do you lead yourself where you want to go? You have to be on the right side of yourself, because if you’re lazy, that keeps you in the same old groove you’re in. If you don’t do nothing, you ain’t get nothing. Some people think the easy stuff is good for you, but the easy stuff ruins you. Soldier On will help anybody. They don’t force you, they just give you the direction and you gotta take it. I’m 59 years old now, and I gotta do what’s right because I don’t want to backtrack. I’m blessed and I feel good. The change was great for me, and I’ve been trying to get everyone else to follow my lead.
