Homeless Charity Operations Drive
Tax deductible
Help us end Homelessness in America.
WE CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU.
Our first facility is located on the east side of Akron in Middlebury.
We are currently sheltering 20-25 people and supporting countless other homeless.
Our mission is to offer innovative solutions to end homelessness in America.
Our incubator is starting in Akron Ohio. Once we develop a working prototype we will begin rolling out more facilities across the country.
The Homeless Charity Shelter and Day Center is being primarily self-funded through the family of Sage and Rocky Lewis.
But we, as a family, can't sustain that much more. We now are looking to the community to help us keep the work going.
Please consider making a contribution (any size makes a difference) to keep our homeless center open.
Thank you so much for your support.
Together we can change the world.
The Reason We Are Doing This Operations Drive
This is Rocky.
This is Rocky doing the books of The Homeless Charity.
I'm not a morning person.
I wake up early but begrudgingly.
I drug myself into the dining room of our 2 bedroom apartment at 6:30 this morning where my wife, who is a morning person was already furiously working on her computer.
She had one message: We can probably make it to September. But we can’t make it to January.
Not only is Rocky a morning person, but she’s also a spreadsheet person. She told me to sit down. She turned her laptop towards me and showed me this:
Lease: $2500
Water: $200
Gas: $600 (averaged)
Electric: $500
Internet: $150
Insurance: $100
Repairs and Maintenance: $750
Those are our monthly expenses for the building of The Homeless Charity.
That comes to $4800/month.
That's what it costs us to run our center each and every month.
According to an Atlantic Article:
How to End Homelessness - The Atlantic
"The average monthly cost of serving a family in an emergency shelter is $4,819 a month. Transitional housing costs about $2,706, rapid rehousing costs $878, and a permanent subsidy, or voucher, costs about $1,162."
Our facility costs $192/month per person. We are radically changing the paradigm of dealing with homelessness.
The Story
I have some good news. And I have some bad news
Now. There is some good news and some bad news.
Since I can’t ask you what you’d like first, I’ll start with the good news (because I’m a good news kind of guy).
The good news is that we have 5 tenants that pay us a total of $1800/month.
So the $4800 actually goes to $3000.
Now the bad news.
Before I ran a charity I was a Web marketer. I probably was personally billing between $4000-$5000/month.
I also was the sales guy and lead marketer for the organization. So that’s why they let me stick around. I was bringing in more business for the company.
That money was mostly going to running our homeless charity.
So, jump ahead about 6 months.
Now I bill almost $0/month and I don’t do any sales or marketing for our marketing firm.
So not only am I not bringing in any money I’m also not growing the business.
I am working full time on The Homeless Charity, as a volunteer.
It is the most fulfilling, meaningful work I have ever done in my life.
I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!
The work we are doing at The Homeless Charity is changing the lives of the throwaway Americans.
We are taking the people who society has determined are worthless and giving them worth. (But more on that later.)
So, now our family lives solely on the income of Rocky. She’s not overly pleased about that. But she also believes in the work we are doing. So she is shouldering that burden.
And this brings me to the point of this whole drive:
Almost all of my time is dedicated to the charity. But I’m not asking for money for me. Rocky is covering our home expenses.
I am asking for money to keep the center running.
The $3000/month we are in the hole simply does not exist. It is being run on leftover money in our marketing firm and our personal savings.
It will run out.
That is where Rocky was this morning at our dining room table. We probably can self-fund this until September. But the money will run out by January, at the latest.
We probably will be forced to close the entire operation if we can't generate enough revenue and donations to cover our operations.
That really sucks because that would happen in the winter. Sending the homeless back into the woods in January is about the coldest thing (emotionally and physically) I can imagine.
BUT THAT DOESN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN!
Together we can keep the center running.
Together we can make a massive difference in the lives of our homeless people.
What can you do?
The most direct thing you can do is donate to our community. As callous as it is: banks, electric companies and gas companies don’t take love and happiness as payment. They just take cash.
So money is really the thing we need.
But if you don’t have money or if you want to do more, please tell your church about our center.
Please tell your friends about our center.
Thank you for anything and everything you can do.
Sage
But wait! What exactly is it that you do at The Homeless Charity?
I'm so glad you asked!
This is our building:
We are located at:
15 Broad St.
Akron, Ohio 44305
This is where East Market, East Exchange and Arlington all come together.
One of the things we do is the Second Chance Store.
It is a thrift store completely run by the homeless at our facility.
All items are free. You can take whatever you want. Just leave a donation if you have it. But we often give a lot of stuff away to the very poor of Akron.
It's open Monday through Saturday 9-5 and Sunday noon - 5.
Just walk down the right side of the building.
We Recycle People
The "helpless" become the helpers.
This is the key to everything we do.
Yes. We have food and shelter for currently about 25 people.
But that's not the real secret to what we are doing.
We are giving the homeless a purpose to live.
We have found that people don't just want to be warehoused.
We can take a person who walks in our door ready to kill himself and in a half hour have him be a highly useful part of our center.
The person can:
Organize the food
Work in the wood work shop
Work in the raised bed gardens
Work in the computer lab
Or just take a moment to be in a place where they aren't being judged. Everyone around them understands their situation. Just sit down, have a cup of coffee and relax.
Our Tent Community
About half the people that stay at our center are currently staying in tents.
I wanted to show you this for one reason: There are a seemingly endless number of people that just want a safe place to sleep.
They don't want to sleep under the bridge. They don't want to sleep in the woods.
All they want is a place to pitch their tent.
This is one of the more heart breaking parts of what homelessness is in America.
The government is trying to tell us that people are abusing social services. And I'm sure that goes on to some extent.
But what I'm telling you is that there are countless people that just want a place to pitch a tent.
Not even a refugee-quality tent. Just a $30 cheap tent from Walmart that leaks if you don't put a tarp over it.
They have nothing. They have zero income. They have zero benefits. They have nothing.
I sometimes go back to our tent community and just shake my head.
These are Americans. Some are veterans that have done hellish tours. And they are thankful for a tent.
This is the truth of America.
And the truth of the matter is: we're almost out of tent space. We have so many people that just want a safe place to put a tent that now we are starting to turn them away.
Would I like to get them out of those tents? Hell yeah I would. But we aren't there right now.
Right now we have to get our facility expenses covered.
(That fence, by the way, was built by Brandon one of our homeless residents. We did that to give the homeless some privacy and also to hide them away from the neighbors. People don't like looking at homeless people, as it turns out.)
Our tent community is a real bitter sweet part of our center for me.
But there are many other parts I just 100% totally LOVE!
Here's a couple people working on our computers. We have about 10 computers people can use any time they want. Homeless people are often kicked out of the library. So they can come here.
Here's our laundry facility. Any homeless person is able to come here and use it any time they want. We also built a shower that any homeless person is welcome to use.
Here's a section of our Second Chance Store. All items have been donated. And all the money donated through the Second Chance Store goes to the homeless working the store. (A lot of times they donate the money right back to the facility to make it better.)
Here's our outdoor 24/7 food pantry. People can come get food there any time they want. It's going so fast that it's getting hard to keep filled. But we're trying.
This is our raised bed gardens we're building. The one on the left should be ready for planting in the next couple days.
These are real people
Let me say this: It's ok to feel any way you want about the homeless.
Most people are scared of them. Some people believe they are just lazy. It's ok. I totally get where you are coming from.
But what I'm telling you is that these are people that got shaken around in the sifter of life and fell out the bottom.
If you've met one homeless person, you've met ONE homeless person.
Sure there are lazy and stupid homeless people. I happen to know some lazy and stupid non-homeless people too.
We have:
Electricians
Plumbers
Computer repair people
Intellectuals
Artists
Musicians
College educated people
People working full time jobs
Retired people
Veterans
Students
And yes. We have:
Alcoholics
Drug Addicts
Mental health issues
But most of the people that come to us are here because they want to take their lives to the next stage.
We have a guy who is writing his book.
We have a guy who is starting a pressure washing business.
We have people who have been sent to us after getting out of detox or rehab.
We are a place where our people matter and have a purpose.
We truly feel we are doing something unique here at The Homeless Charity.
We aren't just warehousing people. We are helping people find a place in society.
So, if you've gotten this far, hopefully you will have found this story interesting. We would LOVE it if you could donate to our center.
Because in all truthfulness, we can't survive without your help.
WE CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU.
Our first facility is located on the east side of Akron in Middlebury.
We are currently sheltering 20-25 people and supporting countless other homeless.
Our mission is to offer innovative solutions to end homelessness in America.
Our incubator is starting in Akron Ohio. Once we develop a working prototype we will begin rolling out more facilities across the country.
The Homeless Charity Shelter and Day Center is being primarily self-funded through the family of Sage and Rocky Lewis.
But we, as a family, can't sustain that much more. We now are looking to the community to help us keep the work going.
Please consider making a contribution (any size makes a difference) to keep our homeless center open.
Thank you so much for your support.
Together we can change the world.
The Reason We Are Doing This Operations Drive
This is Rocky.
This is Rocky doing the books of The Homeless Charity.
I'm not a morning person.
I wake up early but begrudgingly.
I drug myself into the dining room of our 2 bedroom apartment at 6:30 this morning where my wife, who is a morning person was already furiously working on her computer.
She had one message: We can probably make it to September. But we can’t make it to January.
Not only is Rocky a morning person, but she’s also a spreadsheet person. She told me to sit down. She turned her laptop towards me and showed me this:
Lease: $2500
Water: $200
Gas: $600 (averaged)
Electric: $500
Internet: $150
Insurance: $100
Repairs and Maintenance: $750
Those are our monthly expenses for the building of The Homeless Charity.
That comes to $4800/month.
That's what it costs us to run our center each and every month.
According to an Atlantic Article:
How to End Homelessness - The Atlantic
"The average monthly cost of serving a family in an emergency shelter is $4,819 a month. Transitional housing costs about $2,706, rapid rehousing costs $878, and a permanent subsidy, or voucher, costs about $1,162."
Our facility costs $192/month per person. We are radically changing the paradigm of dealing with homelessness.
The Story
I have some good news. And I have some bad news
Now. There is some good news and some bad news.
Since I can’t ask you what you’d like first, I’ll start with the good news (because I’m a good news kind of guy).
The good news is that we have 5 tenants that pay us a total of $1800/month.
So the $4800 actually goes to $3000.
Now the bad news.
Before I ran a charity I was a Web marketer. I probably was personally billing between $4000-$5000/month.
I also was the sales guy and lead marketer for the organization. So that’s why they let me stick around. I was bringing in more business for the company.
That money was mostly going to running our homeless charity.
So, jump ahead about 6 months.
Now I bill almost $0/month and I don’t do any sales or marketing for our marketing firm.
So not only am I not bringing in any money I’m also not growing the business.
I am working full time on The Homeless Charity, as a volunteer.
It is the most fulfilling, meaningful work I have ever done in my life.
I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!
The work we are doing at The Homeless Charity is changing the lives of the throwaway Americans.
We are taking the people who society has determined are worthless and giving them worth. (But more on that later.)
So, now our family lives solely on the income of Rocky. She’s not overly pleased about that. But she also believes in the work we are doing. So she is shouldering that burden.
And this brings me to the point of this whole drive:
Almost all of my time is dedicated to the charity. But I’m not asking for money for me. Rocky is covering our home expenses.
I am asking for money to keep the center running.
The $3000/month we are in the hole simply does not exist. It is being run on leftover money in our marketing firm and our personal savings.
It will run out.
That is where Rocky was this morning at our dining room table. We probably can self-fund this until September. But the money will run out by January, at the latest.
We probably will be forced to close the entire operation if we can't generate enough revenue and donations to cover our operations.
That really sucks because that would happen in the winter. Sending the homeless back into the woods in January is about the coldest thing (emotionally and physically) I can imagine.
BUT THAT DOESN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN!
Together we can keep the center running.
Together we can make a massive difference in the lives of our homeless people.
What can you do?
The most direct thing you can do is donate to our community. As callous as it is: banks, electric companies and gas companies don’t take love and happiness as payment. They just take cash.
So money is really the thing we need.
But if you don’t have money or if you want to do more, please tell your church about our center.
Please tell your friends about our center.
Thank you for anything and everything you can do.
Sage
But wait! What exactly is it that you do at The Homeless Charity?
I'm so glad you asked!
This is our building:
We are located at:
15 Broad St.
Akron, Ohio 44305
This is where East Market, East Exchange and Arlington all come together.
One of the things we do is the Second Chance Store.
It is a thrift store completely run by the homeless at our facility.
All items are free. You can take whatever you want. Just leave a donation if you have it. But we often give a lot of stuff away to the very poor of Akron.
It's open Monday through Saturday 9-5 and Sunday noon - 5.
Just walk down the right side of the building.
We Recycle People
The "helpless" become the helpers.
This is the key to everything we do.
Yes. We have food and shelter for currently about 25 people.
But that's not the real secret to what we are doing.
We are giving the homeless a purpose to live.
We have found that people don't just want to be warehoused.
We can take a person who walks in our door ready to kill himself and in a half hour have him be a highly useful part of our center.
The person can:
Organize the food
Work in the wood work shop
Work in the raised bed gardens
Work in the computer lab
Or just take a moment to be in a place where they aren't being judged. Everyone around them understands their situation. Just sit down, have a cup of coffee and relax.
Our Tent Community
About half the people that stay at our center are currently staying in tents.
I wanted to show you this for one reason: There are a seemingly endless number of people that just want a safe place to sleep.
They don't want to sleep under the bridge. They don't want to sleep in the woods.
All they want is a place to pitch their tent.
This is one of the more heart breaking parts of what homelessness is in America.
The government is trying to tell us that people are abusing social services. And I'm sure that goes on to some extent.
But what I'm telling you is that there are countless people that just want a place to pitch a tent.
Not even a refugee-quality tent. Just a $30 cheap tent from Walmart that leaks if you don't put a tarp over it.
They have nothing. They have zero income. They have zero benefits. They have nothing.
I sometimes go back to our tent community and just shake my head.
These are Americans. Some are veterans that have done hellish tours. And they are thankful for a tent.
This is the truth of America.
And the truth of the matter is: we're almost out of tent space. We have so many people that just want a safe place to put a tent that now we are starting to turn them away.
Would I like to get them out of those tents? Hell yeah I would. But we aren't there right now.
Right now we have to get our facility expenses covered.
(That fence, by the way, was built by Brandon one of our homeless residents. We did that to give the homeless some privacy and also to hide them away from the neighbors. People don't like looking at homeless people, as it turns out.)
Our tent community is a real bitter sweet part of our center for me.
But there are many other parts I just 100% totally LOVE!
Here's a couple people working on our computers. We have about 10 computers people can use any time they want. Homeless people are often kicked out of the library. So they can come here.
Here's our laundry facility. Any homeless person is able to come here and use it any time they want. We also built a shower that any homeless person is welcome to use.
Here's a section of our Second Chance Store. All items have been donated. And all the money donated through the Second Chance Store goes to the homeless working the store. (A lot of times they donate the money right back to the facility to make it better.)
Here's our outdoor 24/7 food pantry. People can come get food there any time they want. It's going so fast that it's getting hard to keep filled. But we're trying.
This is our raised bed gardens we're building. The one on the left should be ready for planting in the next couple days.
These are real people
Let me say this: It's ok to feel any way you want about the homeless.
Most people are scared of them. Some people believe they are just lazy. It's ok. I totally get where you are coming from.
But what I'm telling you is that these are people that got shaken around in the sifter of life and fell out the bottom.
If you've met one homeless person, you've met ONE homeless person.
Sure there are lazy and stupid homeless people. I happen to know some lazy and stupid non-homeless people too.
We have:
Electricians
Plumbers
Computer repair people
Intellectuals
Artists
Musicians
College educated people
People working full time jobs
Retired people
Veterans
Students
And yes. We have:
Alcoholics
Drug Addicts
Mental health issues
But most of the people that come to us are here because they want to take their lives to the next stage.
We have a guy who is writing his book.
We have a guy who is starting a pressure washing business.
We have people who have been sent to us after getting out of detox or rehab.
We are a place where our people matter and have a purpose.
We truly feel we are doing something unique here at The Homeless Charity.
We aren't just warehousing people. We are helping people find a place in society.
So, if you've gotten this far, hopefully you will have found this story interesting. We would LOVE it if you could donate to our center.
Because in all truthfulness, we can't survive without your help.
Organizer
Sage Lewis
Organizer
Akron, OH
The Homeless Charity
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.
