Meet Demetrius, Team VOA Southside Member
Where Are They Now? An Alumni Follow-Up 2017 to 2025
When we showed up at the Volunteers of America Reentry Center for men completing prison sentences back in 2017, we weren’t sure what to expect. When we asked to recruit residents for a running team, staff of the center said “Good luck!” But that first day, we walked out having signed up five men to run. One of them was Demetrius Harris.
After 12 years in, Demetrius left prison having become a runner. What he didn’t have was a positive community to support him and keep him going. “I had been a real street dude. I’d never had a job in my life. But I got out and was committed to never going back.” This included surrounding himself with positive people, and throwing himself into a consistent job for the first time in his life. He got up at 6am to run with his team, then headed off to work at a moving company. “I threw myself into these things to keep my mind focused on my goals.”
Demetrius would become one of Team Southside’s most consistent Members, continuing to join the team for runs and special events after moving out, and getting his own place in the fall of 2017. Eight years after joining the moving company, he is still there - having worked his way up from a laborer to a driver to now working in the office and running his own crew. Additionally, he started his own moving company - “Dropping Loads LLC” - at the encouragement of his boss. “I try to be the best worker possible. And I get paid to work out! In prison I lifted weights, now I lift furniture. I just wish I had started this journey when I was young.”
In 2021, having run with a MiMS “Alone Together” team during the pandemic shutdowns, he was asked to speak at the Downtown Run Around. “I spent two weeks studying that damn speech!” In it, he shared how he had returned to run with MiMS to be an example to others about what was possible. “I try to be there for others the way that MiMS was there for me. That’s what MiMS stands for, and that’s what I stand for,” he shared. The habit of running before work that he developed with his MiMS team stuck - he still runs every morning at 5am before heading out for the day. “Running clears my thoughts and takes my stress away. It keeps me in shape and keeps me focused.”
Demetrius celebrates his success by traveling the country with his wife of nearly four years and spending time with his daughter, who he tries to get running with him, and his cousin Eddie, former Team Southside Alumni and current Team TC South Member. “I’d love to be an Alumni Mentor. I’d even love to start my own team! And I will do it, but I will not commit until I am sure I have the time because I take this commitment seriously.” Until then, look out for Demetrius popping up at a MiMS race or event: “Every time I come out to a run with this community, it just feels like this is where I am supposed to be.”
