Coach Who Mentors Teens Gets a Home Makeover on HGTV's Home Town Kickstart Presented by PEOPLE

Growing up in Winslow, Ariz., Christopher Garrett was a child of divorce who often felt lost and alone. So when he became a teacher and coach in his community five years ago, he knew exactly what role he wanted to fill in the lives of young people who showed signs of struggling like he had: a trusted adult they could talk to.

The first young person to reach out was a teen named Weldon, who played on the baseball team that Christopher, now 28, coaches at Winslow High School. He was seeking advice about a job application and resumé. "For sure, come over,'" Christopher told him, recalls his wife, Mishayla. "'We'll get on the computer together and I'll help you do that.' That's where it all started," she says.

Word spread that Christopher and his wife, Mishayla, 26, offered help and support, and one teen after another showed up at their house. But Weldon barely made it into adulthood: he died from drug use in 2020 at age 19. "I just really felt I let him down, and I wasn't doing enough," says Christopher, devastated. "I was like, 'Hey, I've got to do more.' "

Already the parents of three kids ages 1 to 6, Christopher and Mishayla dedicated themselves to helping any young person who asked for advice, guidance, a bite to eat, or a place to relax and rewind.

"Things just started rolling," says Christopher. "It quickly turned into what we have today: kids just stopping by. We'll be in our front yard, and they stop, talk to our kids, talk to us. It's like, 'Hey, what's for dinner?' 'You want some?' It's just opening up our house to anybody who needs it."

That can mean anywhere from a half-dozen to 40 extra kids hanging out at the house at once — and an opportunity for Christopher to offer far more than friendship. He demonstrates to them how to be a positive role model.

He offers them tips about budgeting money, and planning a grocery list, or finding their first apartment. He teaches them how to cook — not just for themselves, but for others.

HGTV Christopher and Mishayla Garrett at home in Winslow, Ariz.

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"He wants us all to graduate, he wants us all to succeed in life. He always preaches that," says Parker Stubblefield, a 17-year-old junior at Winslow High, where Christopher is the head baseball coach. (Christopher is also an elementary special education teacher.)

But teaching in a cramped kitchen, with limited dining and living room space, has been a challenge, say the Garretts. Thankfully, they recently received a makeover of their house on Home Town Kickstart Presented by PEOPLE, the new HGTV series whose designers venture into small town in America each week to revitalize businesses and boost individuals who have a big impact on their communities. The episode featuring the Garretts airs May 1, 8 p.m. ET on HGTV and streams on discovery+. (An exclusive clip is shown above.)

On the show, twin sisters Lyndsay Lamb and Leslie Davis, the hosts of HGTV's Unsellable Houses, took down walls in the Garretts' home, added a large kitchen island with an extended dining table, and spruced up the living room to better accommodate the many kids who drop by.

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"I've never dreamed of a kitchen like this," says Christopher. Adds Mishayla: "From start to finish, it just seems like a dream."

Growing up with hard-working parents who divorced when he was 8 years old, Christopher had watched as his friends were pulled in directions he didn't want to follow. He remembers that few others came from single-parent homes. "I felt alone," he says. "But even though I had a rough background, with my parents splitting and being around drugs and gangs and stuff like that, I was the lucky one. I was able to get my life on track."

Christopher credits adult mentors — including his former football coach B.J. Little, who is now the presiding justice of the peace in Navajo County — for providing the encouragement he needed when he had nowhere else to turn.

"He was giving, generous, and very respectful," recalls Little of young Christopher, "but he wanted that confidence from me to know that it's OK to be that way."

HGTV Christopher and Mishayla Garrett in their renovated kitchen, Winslow, Ariz.

"When you look at members in our area in northeast Arizona, we deal with a population of young people that needs encouragement, hope and direction," Little says. "We're not saturated with a bunch of resources. We're a community that needs to show kids the bigger picture, and I think Christopher and Mishayla do that."

"That's what makes them such heroes in my book," says Little. "There's no better gift to give than giving another person a chance."

Last spring the seniors of Winslow High asked Christopher to be the keynote speaker for their graduation assembly.

"One of his biggest attributes is his positivity and his inviting nature," says the school's principal, Sal Hernandez.

"Christopher spoke about his journey in life and how he persevered and how a small-town boy from Winslow made it through the ranks, went through college, and came back to share his passion with other kids," says Hernandez. "The biggest thing the seniors took from that is, just being from a small town doesn't dictate who you are. It's how hard you work, and some of the challenging obstacles that you overcome in life will really help dictate the type of person you'll become."

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"He has high standards for his kids," says Hernandez, "and his kids live up to those standards."

For Christopher, the invitation to speak was a humbling surprise. "That kind of made me feel like maybe I'm doing something right," he says. "And it just made me push a little harder, every day after that, to pursue the youth and try to make a change."

"What's next is just to keep on pushing, to keep inviting the youth into the house and inviting them to do the right things, inviting them to go achieve all their dreams. Nothing's stopping them except themselves."

Says Mishayla: "All his students know where Mr. Garrett lives. He is their go-to when there's something going on. He'll never say no."