Mr. Mares calls November 2018 the date he was released from prison, the restart of his life. While in prison he was trained as peer educator by Project Echo to facilitate groups of fellow inmates about communicable diseases and addiction. This opportunity gave him hope and a new outlook for life outside the walls of prison to rejoin society and give back to the community. It also opened his eyes to the value of peer-to-peer communication where the facilitator not only passes on knowledge to his peers but gains knowledge from them.

Mr. Mares is now a Licensed Substance Abuse Associate, (LSAA), and has worked extensively with men and women coming out of incarceration, the homeless population, and women who are domestic violence victims. He is also a QPR Lifetime Pathfinder trained to facilitate groups in Suicide Prevention.