Spotlight on Make-A-Day

Make-A-Day (MAD) was founded in 2018 by cousins Kyle Barger, Alex Emrich, & Rebekah Keller. It’s first pop-up at 5th & High set the tone for its work: a place where meals, haircuts, & essentials open the door to trust, dignity, & community.

The Make-a-Day Mission

Make-A-Day’s mission is to empower the impoverished through inclusive community events, acts of kindness, outreach, advocacy, & educational awareness. It is a mobile front door to stability, walking alongside neighbors experiencing homelessness & economic instability. MAD’s role is to help clear the obstacles–missing IDs, criminal records, gaps in benefits, broken connections–that stand between people and the life they are seeking.

Its Impact

Since its inception, MAD has provided over 60,000 meals and 12,000 essentials (like clothing & hygiene supplies), connected hundreds of guests to housing & jobs, and engaged over 500 volunteers. Please consider donating to MAD or becoming a MAD Volunteer!

MAD Initiatives

Everything Make-A-Day does flows through a single pathway: to stabilize immediate needs, to restore what instability has disrupted, and to advance people toward housing, employment, & long-term belonging.

Stabilize

Through Pop-Up Care Villages and its Mobile Outreach Unit, MAD brings meals, clothing, hygiene support, and essentials directly to people wherever they are. These first connections build trust & dignity, and open the door to housing, healthcare, & longer-term support.

Pop-Up Care Villages, held 6-10 times a year, are one-day community events that transform parks, parking lots, and neighborhood spaces into welcoming hubs where people can access meals, essentials, & support, all in one place, all free of charge. Local businesses provide resources, faith communities open their networks, healthcare providers, legal aid organizations, housing navigators, workforce programs, harm reduction teams, barbers & stylists, and neighborhood organizations all work side by side.

For guests, the experience is welcoming and judgment-free. There are no forms to fill out and no prerequisites for showing up. Those who show up for a meal or a conversation are part of the same community as the businesses, volunteers, and partners who show up alongside them.

Mobile outreach is about meeting immediate needs and building long-term relationships. Each week, Make-A-Day’s Mobile Outreach Unit travels to encampments, shelters, & other places where neighbors are living outdoors. It brings fresh meals, hygiene & weather gear, harm reduction supplies, and practical support.

MAD’s Community Outreach Team shows up consistently, listens first, and gets to know each person. These connections open the door to stabilizing services: help replacing IDs or birth certificates, legal navigation & record clearance, housing assessments, links to workforce programs, access to healthcare & recovery support, and benefits enrollment.

At its core, mobile outreach is about dignity, presence, and trust. A meal opens the conversation. Consistency builds the relationship. And those relationships are where stability begins.

Restore

Pop-Up Care Villages & the Mobile Outreach Unit are the entry points into MAD’s full range of Restore & Advance services. One-on-one, MAD helps people move past obstacles, providing systems navigation with a human face. Homelessness & housing instability are not just about a lack of shelter but are also about the accumulation of barriers: a missing ID that blocks applications, a benefits gap that makes rent impossible, a criminal record that closes every door before it opens.

MAD meets neighbors where they are: on the street, in a shelter, at a pop-up event. It builds trust first, then gets to work. That might mean connecting someone to recovery support, walking through a housing application, or following up on a benefit that’s been stuck for months. MAD stays past that first conversation, however long it takes.

Winter Warming Solutions: During the winter months, in partnership with the Community Shelter Board, MAD provides intensive case management & stabilization services for individuals experiencing homelessness who cannot safely access or remain in traditional shelter environments because of medical needs, physical disabilities, behavioral health conditions, pets, or long histories of homelessness.

MAD works onsite & in the field to clear barriers that most often derail the housing process: incomplete documentation, stalled benefits, legal issues, housing application requirements, and the logistical gaps that cause people to miss their one shot at a placement. It also coordinates weekly case conferencing with street outreach partners from Mount Carmel & Southeast Healthcare to keep the pipeline moving and placements filled.

Last winter, 75 individuals were served and 44 exited to Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), an 80.7% housing exit rate, more than double the Franklin County shelter system average of 35%. For participants who received a PSH referral while stabilized in a hotel, housing placement occurred in an average of 35 days. These results are what happens when people are given stable shelter, consistent support, and a team that removes obstacles instead of adding them.

MAD is actively exploring how to sustain and expand this model beyond the winter months. Last winter’s outcomes make a clear case for hotel-based stabilization as a year-round housing intervention.

Healthy Aging & Housing Stability: Many older adults in Franklin County are one unexpected bill, one missed benefit, or one moment of isolation away from losing their housing. PEARLS (Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives) is a one-on-one coaching program for older adults living in affordable housing communities. A PEARLS Coach meets with participants six to eight times to work through the everyday stressors that make stability hard to hold.

Sessions are conversational and practical. Participants set goals, build confidence, and work through problems that used to feel overwhelming. While residents move through the program, MAD staff can also connect them to benefits, housing support, legal services, medical referrals, and community resources. The result is a person who is less likely to face eviction and more connected to the supports that keep them housed.

Advance

A criminal record does not expire. For people who have served their time, paid their fines, & tried to move forward, it keeps showing up: on job applications, housing forms, & background checks. It is one of the most persistent and least visible barriers keeping people stuck in poverty & homelessness, and one that the legal system rarely helps people navigate.

Move the Box is MAD’s mobile justice navigation initiative. After meeting people through its mobile outreach & pop-up events and building trust, MAD walk with them through the process of understanding their legal history, identifying what can be cleared, and connecting them to legal help to get it done. Since launching in October 2025, Move the Box has completed more than 100 legal engagements, connecting neighbors with expungement screening, reentry navigation, ID support, and mailing address assistance.

Move the Box clears criminal records and opens doors to housing and employment for people whose past has followed them too long. MAD is expanding this work into workforce development & financial empowerment, building clear pathways to economic mobility for people who have been systematically shut out.

Outstanding warrants create a separate but equally serious barrier. They prevent people from accessing housing, employment, and basic services, and they make every interaction feel dangerous. MAD partners with the Franklin County Tap In Center, which provides the legal support to help neighbors clear non-violent misdemeanor warrants and have their cases recalled and rescheduled.

Move the Box includes expungement screening & eligibility review, connection to legal partners for record sealing & clearance, ID recovery & mailing address support, housing & employment navigation following record clearance, and coordination with the Franklin County Tap In Center for warrant resolution.

Programs Underway include a Workforce Development Program designed to prepare, train, & connect neighbors with sustainable employment opportunities that match their goals & skills and Financial Empowerment Workshops that give neighbors the tools to manage money, build credit, and take steps toward long-term financial stability.