Five dollars won't solve homelessness, but when hundreds of people choose to give $5, together those gifts become utility payments, application fees, prescriptions, gas cards, IDs, bus passes, and other small interventions that prevent much larger crises.
The Stability Fund gives Make-A-Day the flexibility to respond in the moment, when waiting isn't an option. It's the kind of support that helps guests every single month.
Read MoreWe're excited to welcome Saloni Sabatino to the Make-A-Day team as our newest AmeriCorps VISTA member.
Over the next year, Saloni will lead the development of our Peer Access Navigation initiative, building the systems that will help connect individuals experiencing housing instability, justice involvement, and economic hardship to the healthcare and behavioral health services they need to thrive.
Read MoreMy experience with the homeless population was limited at best. I just finished my year of service as a Make-A-Day AmeriCorps VISTA and wanted to share a final reflection on how this year has impacted me.
I figured Columbus had a homeless population, but nothing like the encampment we served at. I just didn’t know people were living like that.
Read MoreThe Evaluation & Outcomes VISTA member will focus on building and refining the systems that help Make-A-Day Foundation understand and strengthen its impact. During their term, the VISTA member will rebuild donor tracking and stewardship systems, develop consistent outcome tracking across programs, and integrate data from outreach, fundraising, and reporting tools. This role is ideal for someone interested in data analysis, evaluation, nonprofit operations, or systems change. If you are passionate about using data to support work addressing hunger, housing instability, and health outcomes, this may be the role for you!
Read MoreMeet Ryan and Daniel, two students from Columbus Academy who have dedicated their summer to strengthening community partnerships, connecting with local businesses, and helping ensure Make-A-Day can continue serving our neighbors experiencing homelessness and hardship.
The funds raised through this event support Make-A-Day's weekly outreach and Stability Fund, allowing us to meet people where they are with food, hygiene supplies, case management, legal navigation, transportation assistance, housing support, and other critical resources that help remove barriers to stability.
Read MorePeople living in encampments do not have trash pickup. They do not have a secure place to store belongings. They do not have access to a shower. These gaps are not the result of anything the people living outside did or failed to do. They are what happens when a person falls outside the systems the rest of us rely on without thinking about them.
Read MoreFranklinton Farms started its Monday morning the same way it always does. Dew painting the quiet rows of vegetables waiting for small groups of people to stroll through picking the available produce. This isn’t the setting you expect to have a food truck, clothing store, hair salon, barber shop, courthouse, and nineteen service tables lined up beside the soil . By the time MAD’s Rooted Pop-Up Care Village wrapped up at 2:00 PM, nearly 200 neighbors had walked through the space clearing barriers in more ways than one.
Read MoreRon first met the Make-A-Day team during a street outreach session at the Hilltop Library. At the time, he was not seeking housing assistance. He was hoping for a meal. He had worked hard to manage his situation on his own, but every attempt to move forward seemed to end in another setback. The process became overwhelming, but with Make-A-Day's support he secured a lease.
Ron’s story highlights the many barriers people face when trying to re-enter housing, especially while managing recovery and limited resources. With consistent, hands-on support from Make-A-Day, Ron was able to secure stable housing and move forward with renewed independence.
Read MoreLast week, HUD quietly rolled back nearly two decades of federal guidance protecting emotional support animals (ESAs) in housing. For many people experiencing homelessness or housing instability, that change creates one more barrier to accessing safe, stable housing.
We see every day how pets and ESAs provide consistency, emotional support, and connection for people navigating trauma, mental health challenges, and displacement. Removing federal enforcement protections doesn’t erase that reality, it just makes housing harder to access for the people who need it most.
Read MoreOn August 5, 2025, I hit one year as Executive Director of Make-A-Day. I marked it the same way I mark most milestones here: in the middle of a full week, with a lot still on my mind. We are going to cover a year that I am genuinely proud of. Not because everything went smoothly. It didn't. But because through all of it, we never lost the thing that matters most: we stayed rooted in dignity and in community. That is how Make-A-Day was founded. That is still who we are.
Read MoreThe scenes you expect to see as kids celebrate the last few weeks of school and look ahead to summer unfolded in and outside of Star House, Columbus’ drop-in center for youth experiencing homelessness on Monday.
A major priority for Junior League of Columbus and Make-A-Day was making sure the event was shaped by Star House youth themselves. They wanted the chance to just be teenagers for a few hours. They wanted music, games, good food, friendly competition, and time with friends without having to constantly think about survival, housing, paperwork, or next steps.
So that’s what we did.
Read MoreAlmost one year ago we started regularly hosting street outreach at the Hilltop Library in preparation for the launch of Move the Box. What started as a email asking us to bring volunteer stylists and barbers has expanded to partnering for a full expungement Pop-Up, monthly street outreach sessions, and relationships with more than 5 other Columbus Metropolitan Library branches.
Read MoreOn May 4th, the Hilltop Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library didn't look like a quiet place to study. It looked like a living room for the neighborhood.
By the time the last neighbor left, 200+ people had come through, with the library reporting an 80% increase in their door count from the previous year.
Read MoreSharing a meal has been central to how Make-A-Day works from the beginning. Before a referral, before a form, before anything else, there is food. It is how trust gets built. It is what signals to someone that they belong in the room. For years we have done that work out of parking lots and community centers, showing up with the food truck and setting up tables wherever people already were. Rooted is an extension of that, but with something added. At Franklinton Farms, the meal is not just a tool for engagement. It is connected to the ground, to something growing, to a resource that belongs to the neighborhood and that neighbors can return to on their own. That is a different kind of access than a referral can provide.
Read MoreTraditional warming centers are built for immediacy. A place to sleep. A way to get inside. A response to cold. But for people with the highest barriers to housing, a place to sleep is not enough, or not accessible.
In partnership with the Community Shelter Board, Nate Smith Logistics, Mount Carmel and Southeast Healthcare street outreach, and various other service organizations - and funding from our City of Columbus and Franklin County partners - we helped provide a non-congregate winter warming shelter designed specifically for people who could not safely access or remain in traditional shelter environments.
Read MoreMike and Lisa founded Make-A-Day’s volunteer operated Dignity Market after nearly a decade of serving guests in the Short North. A completely free shop stocked with donated clothing and hygiene items at each one of our Pop-Up Care Villages. For them, the work has always been personal, “I just love seeing people transition into housing. That’s not really our part in it, but I think people need to see people like us caring. I think that’s important.”
Read MoreMilo-Grogan has a long memory. It is a neighborhood that has weathered disinvestment, displacement, and decades of being promised resources that did not always arrive. It is also a neighborhood with deep roots, good neighbors, and organizations like Cultivate CDC that have stayed and built something lasting. Minority Health Month felt like the right time to show up here, with services, for our neighbors, in a community that has been overlooked more than it has been served.
Read MoreMake-A-Day is excited to share that we are kicking off an expanded phase of our Move the Box initiative through a new partnership with Franklin County. This investment, through the county’s Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison initiative, allows us to deepen and scale the legal navigation work we began in October 2025.
Read MoreIn Franklin County, expungement is legally possible but often out of reach for residents facing homelessness, poverty, and systemic racial inequities. Through our Move the Box Pop-Up Care Village we brought courts, attorneys, and community partners directly into the neighborhood, helping over 200 guests access support services that move them closer to housing, employment, and long-term stability.
Read MoreYes, we’ve heard your requests that Alex and Jesse partner with Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg to release the cookbook to put all cookbooks to shame. I’ve had to turn away Martha’s agents four times just this month.
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