From Homelessness to Habitat

About the Project: From Homelessness to Habitat

Project Goals and Intended Outcomes

1. Make inroads into the homeless community through mentorship and empowerment

2. Build trust and bring infrastructure to those who are stuck

3. Bring together and foster collaboration between groups of contributors who would never have worked with each other

4. Engage contributors in a “long-haul” solution rather than just contributing to a single event

5. Establish a working model in Columbus with the intent to replicate elsewhere in America

6. Raise public awareness by education through schools and the community

• What I can do to help the homeless

• Learn to recognize the many faces of the homeless (who are the homeless?)

7. Distribute resources to the homeless

Event Details

The event was scheduled for Saturday, April 14, 2018 from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Project planners deliberately chose a central location, in the heart of Franklinton, to maximize accessibility by participants. The Holy Family Soup Kitchen (57 S Grubb Street, Columbus, OH 43215) was located near bus lines and was already familiar to many.

The Contributors

Contributors consisted of individuals, schools, established groups, and social workers, as well as organizations such as shelters, churches, soup kitchens, and medical, food, and clothing organizations already involved with aiding the homeless.

Organizations involved:

• Basement Blessings

• Second Chances

• North Union Local Schools

• Pentacostal Refuge of Hope

• The Peers Group (Peers Center)

Project Pre-Work

Connection and Communication

• Matthew 25

• The Drug Court

• OSU Medical Students

• Refugee Women in Action • Columbus Relief

• Public Awareness Drive: Communication with a local school district and superintendent allowed us to connect to students, parents, and their community to educate, raise awareness, and help them get involved with preparation of resources for the event.

• Connecting and Driving Cooperation: We brought together previously established organizations and notified area churches to reach more contributors and participants, culminating in a focused and consistently organized joint event.

• Encouraging the Global Won philosophy: Throughout all communications, emphasis was placed on 1) employing the mentor/mentee approach, 2) to lead with the heart with good listening skills, and 3) to foster empowerment by encouraging others to consider the consequences which could emerge before choices are made.

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Recruitment for Specialized Planned Activities

• Laughter yoga: Recruited instructor Michelle Fought to lead laughter yoga sessions throughout the day

• Medical screening: Recruited students from Ohio State University’s medical school to provide basic screening for participants

Preparation of Resources

• Art gifts: Students from North Union Local SD drew pictures/wrote letters to give as art gifts

• Donation goods drive: North Union Local SD ran a collection to gather goods for donation (clothing, shoes, etc.)

• Resource kits: Individual contributors from the community assembled 200 gender-specific resource bags containing essential toiletries, cookies, a Global Won contact card, and a list of phone numbers and addresses to resource centers addressing specific needs

• Location for event was identified and reserved

“Hey all our Global Won Event is coming up soon and we really need donations as well as volunteers. Please consider serving in this way. This Awesome event is to bring homeless to Habitat, reaching out to those trafficked and addicted and walking with our wonderful veterans to get them the help they need. ... We will need lots of volunteers to serve food, assist at the mini learning and support stations, pray with them and finally once they've"graduated" handing them their graduation gifts. It won't end there though there will be continuous help, support and encouragement, this is just the beginning of a wonderful movement!! For the event we are collecting clothes, ( men and women and kids), shoes(tennis shoes or boots), backpacks, tarps, and ponchos., flashlights and hygiene bags, sleeping bags, and the shopping bags from like Kroger or Target ( mats for the homeless will be made from these. How cool is that?!!!!)

We will keep updating you and please contact us with any questions. Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, we CAN and WILL breakdown the walls and conquer homelessness, hunger, slavery, addictions and hatred. LOVE WINS!!!!!”

- Mentor/contributor, April 5, 2018, pre-event Facebook communication