Discover the powerful story of a former foster child who overcame abuse and abandonment to become a changemaker, author, and CEO.
A former foster child survived years of abuse from multiple homes, including those of family members, abandonment, and homelessness. She courageously wrote about aging out of foster care, homelessness, severe poverty, and doing what she could to survive—a changemaker whose story of youth and adolescence experiences caught the attention of home state officials of Ohio.
A Rough Start Facing Abuse and Abandonment
Michelle Mays is the second oldest of five siblings from Waynesville, Ohio. She didn’t have the typical life of a kid and was always in survivor mode.
At four years old, the tiny blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl was abused by her teenage uncle. The young girl would learn to hide her urge to use the restroom and often wet herself out of fear of sharing a space with men in her home again. Her mother’s boyfriend also added more trauma for the little girl and sexually abused Michelle.
Michelle was sexually abused multiple times by different people before entering foster care. This was another one of Michelle’s first childhood memories, and it was Taboo to talk about it.
By eight years old, she had been electrocuted and was in an almost fatal hit-and-run car accident. Michelle had been crossing a highway- something she had done multiple before due to living in an unsupervised environment. Her accident caused her to be resuscitated, followed by a shattered kidney and pelvis. She had fractured ribs, lacerations in her liver and bowels, crossed eyes, and was in a coma for three days. While most people recover with loved ones near their side-Michelle’s mother never visited the hospital. But Michelle had a special guardian angel, a nurse named Faye, who stuck by her side and made her feel loved, special, and beautiful.
While recovering the best way an eight-year-old knows how from her nearly fatal experience, Michelle was forced to leave her home. In a rush, she left her only friend behind, a cotton-filled doll named Nelly. Nelly was found in a dumpster, where Michelle regularly played to find fun treasures while her mom was bartending. Already unstable, her mother abandoned Michelle and her two brothers, leaving them alone in a padlocked trailer without electricity and only a few canned food items for several weeks.
Michelle would spend her next few years in the foster care system.
The first two foster homes were healthy, everyday environments for Michelle and her siblings. The second home would become her favorite, where she learned the fundamentals of looking and acting like a lady. The foster mom, Jerline, taught Michelle how to comb her hair and provided a loving atmosphere. She fixed her crossed eyes, relieving her from being bullied and giving her hope.
Jerline also entered Michelle into beauty pageants, where she collected memories of beauty, confidence, and happiness.
Michelle’s soul-filled smiles and sunny disposition would alter as she moved back home. Changing her routines and a short-lived marathon of primping and polishing herself. She would live with her father, who at the time was unable to care for his children.
The abused girl, without any parental guidance, love, or structure, couldn’t handle the pressures of being at home and ran away. The 14-year-old lived in a mall in Dayton, Ohio. The desperate-to-survive teen would arrange rides to stay at someone’s house at night and then return to the mall during the day. She would set up tables for a restaurant, and then they would feed her. On the weekends, she babysat for a hairstylist who also worked at the mall.
The word got around, and the police were called, and the terrified teen appeared in court- and refused to be released to her unstable father. She did 30 days in the Juvenile Detention Center, but it was better than returning home.
A woman who lived close to JDC would take Michelle to school every morning and return her to JDC afterward so she would not fall behind academically. The caring woman ended up getting custody of Michelle. But the young girl sabotaged her opportunity, snuck out of her home, and ended up getting pregnant.
The next stop was an emergency foster home where Amish folks lived. Michelle would shower once a week at the local YMCA. The ways of religion and living were too extreme to process, and the foster child was ready to run again if her caseworker didn’t get her out of the home.
The following residence was full of cigarette smoke, with unruly teenage boys who were allowed to grab and fondle the girls as they pleased. Michelle had hardly recovered from her painstaking experience of relieving her duties of becoming a 15-year-old parent before being abused again. This time it was the foster mom’s 21-year-old son who raped Michelle.
To avoid further contact with the 21-year-old and the morally unclean environment- the A/B student joined every extracurricular activity she could to avoid the evil home.
Escape through Emancipation
After Michelle’s boyfriend’s mother witnessed Michelle’s abuse, she stepped in, took her in, and helped her become emancipated. Michelle’s life brightened- she had straight A’s, a job, and an apartment! She dreamt of going to college and was given a grant to attend Wright State University’s Theatre program.
She had it all figured out upon graduating at 17 and was ecstatic about her incredible opportunity—until she received an eviction notice. She owed $900 for rent; little did she know the county no longer supported her once she graduated. This moment crushed all of her dreams in a flash, leaving her homeless once again, but her setback would later become part of a bigger picture in creating a master plan for a non-profit.
Surviving an Abusive Alcoholic Husband
Michelle became pregnant and married at 18, with two children by 19.
Her abusive, alcoholic husband enforced strict rules. Most often, the cars would be disabled so that she couldn’t leave and wasn’t allowed to work. On the days she did go, Michelle left without makeup and was required to wear worn-out undergarments from maternity days while her husband stayed home.
Michelle would endure drunken beatings, choking, getting punched, cussed at, and drug by her hair before escaping the consistent inhumane ways of living. The brave warrior would survive her barbaric life when a family member witnessed her husband’s gruesome behavior.
Michelle would transition into life as a divorced 21-year-old mother devoted to raising her boys and putting the past behind her.
Finding Her Role Model, Writing Partner, and Nelly.
A gap of time proceeded after the years of sexual, mental, and physical abuse and abandonment. Michelle went on to re-marry, raise her children, and find a successful career as a data analyst. The resourceful former foster kid incorporated her quick-wittedness and humorous personality to navigate life. Her recycled coping mechanisms gave her all she needed to put on a show for her side hustle as a DJ.
Along the way, she found her best friend, Michelle Moone. Moone became Mays’ true ride-or-die, someone she trusted, admired, and loved dearly. Moone’s calm personality and being a Psychology major made it easy for Mays to embrace their relationship. Moone knew the complex parts of Mays’ past and had always wanted to write about Mays.
While Mays had always known she had a book inside her, she doubted people would ever want to read it. However, her professor insisted she write her story while attending college as an adult. At the same time, Moone was overcoming a rough period in her life and revisited her ideas about writing. Mays decided writing the book would be a good distraction for Moone. If anything, Mays thought it would be a few wine nights and then fizzle.
To their surprise, the two souls would soon add a new layer to life. Something they would look forward to, with a routine of recalling a memory, acting it out, looking it up on Google, and then researching to find relevance. In doing so, Michelle discovered her second foster home mom after 18 years. She instantly reacquainted with her former role model and favorite foster mom, Jerline.
After a trip to Tennessee to meet her stand-in-mom, Jerline, Michelle stopped at a Pilot gas station while driving back to Ohio. To Michelle’s surprise, she found her blonde-haired best friend, Nelly! The doll was a replica of the one she left behind before being placed into foster care. Nelly dolls hung from the ceiling of all different races.
Joyfully, Michelle bought three dolls representing the idea that anyone from any race, religion, or economic standing could live the same life Michelle did. And that you never know someone’s story. Three dolls later, with Jerline back in her life, Michelle was on top of the world.
A Place of Peace in the Smoky Mountains
Upon Michelle and Jerline’s rekindled relationship, Jerline had been reading Michelle’s first draft of her book, Dumpster Doll. The book reminded Jereline of the cabin where she vacationed in the mountains of Pigeon Forge, Tennesee. The same cabin where Michelle made memories of being a healthy, typical kid, tubing in the river, playing in a creek, picking blackberries, and simply being in nature.
Jereline no longer lived in the cabin full of fond memories but saw it was for sale and repurchased it! The timing was impeccable! Jerline allowed Michelle to visit as often as it was available and served as Michelle’s place of peace, where she could produce emotions and feelings in her book series.
The cabin became a place for Mays and Moone to write all night into the following day to a deserving breakfast. The dedicated duo educated themselves on the ins and outs of writing and publishing. Every step would become one purposeful conversation that organically opened a new door.
Michelle’s first book of the Dumpster Doll series, The Early Years, was released in 2019 and Co-Authored by her best friend, Michelle Moone. The book is a powerful memoir that shares Mays’ experiences of neglect, trauma, abandonment, a near-death experience, severe forms of abuse, and running away, all while searching for a place to belong. Proceeds from her books would go toward her non-profit dream of growing the FosterHub.
The release of her second book, Adolescence, was also the day she would receive the Proclamation of Michelle Mays Day on December 17, 2022.
Rightfully titled Adolescence, the second series continued Michelle’s journey into a shaky adolescence. In it, Michelle talks about the hardships she faced aging out of foster care and making mistakes due to the absence of parental guidance.
Michelle may have had little direction in life, but she learned to give her issues to God to guide her. “God is the GPS, and I’m just steering the wheel, ” she says. She knows there was a purpose for everything she experienced as a kid, and she was meant to be an earthly angel and a warrior for someone else.
On May 4, 2023, a nightly dreamer, Michelle, woke up from a vivid dream of walking through a building with multiple doors and rooms with specific details. She drew it immediately! She didn’t tell anyone about it, but then she heard a voice say, “That’s not good enough.”
The warrior-of-a-woman, determined to see the dream interpretation through, downloaded software and created a 3D walk-through model. It became a facility for aged-out foster youth. The idea originated when Michelle graduated high school at 17 and lost all of her assistance.
Purposeful Introductions
The next day, after her dream, Michelle conversed with a stranger who was compelled to tell her he was a strategic developer working for Corna Kokosing, a well-known construction company. He shared that CK takes special causes under its wing and assists in special building projects. He felt the urge to ask if he could help Michelle with anything.
Michelle was in shock—she couldn’t believe the crazy coincidence! Right away, Michelle shared her dream and 3-D drawing. Without hesitation, the man said, “This is God.“
The man said, “This has God all over it, and it’s going to be successful!”
Michelle excitedly knew it was Divine Intervention because she had no experience with a project of this magnitude, let alone the coincidence of meeting this stranger.
Ohio’s second lady, Tina Husted, contacted her a week later. Husted read the Dumpster Doll and was reading Adolesense and asked Michelle to breakfast. At the time, the Lt. Governor’s wife had never read anything of this magnitude! Michelle’s book and was in awe. She was more than eager to learn more about Michelle and her plan for the Foster Hub. After a life-changing breakfast with Tina Husted, the DJ and data nerd, as she calls herself, suddenly had a full calendar of meetings with those who would help build on the vision.
Before further development, she needed a procured planner to oversee the grant process. Again, Michelle was empty-handed without a planner and was prepared to wait another year. But after Tina Husted, the wife of Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted—now a friend and a sister in Christ to Michelle encouraged Michelle to be herself.
She would attend meetings with state officials, learn the ways of the political world, and begin her steps to make her dream of her non-profit organization come true.
From that point forward, Michelle did just that; she would be herself in one life-changing conversation after another, along with God’s guided interventions.
Michelle’s son, a real estate agent, would find a building—a 20,000-square-foot space in a 1914 building downtown in the heart of Logan, Ohio.
With the collaborations of Appalachian Children’s Coalition, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the Ohio Department of Development, the Ohio Lt. Governor’s wife, Tina Husted, along with Corna Kokosing’s (CK) 17-page estimate of the 20,000-square-foot building for FREE-the future looked bright!
Then, a grant of $7.3 million was submitted and approved!
Michelle got every penny she asked for!
The Selfless DJ Drops the Mic and Picks up the Role of CEO
After 21 years, Michelle left her life as a successful data analyst for Verizon, a job she loved, and dropped the mic from her side hustle job as a DJ. Michelle’s work as a DJ provided income to support and keep her dream project, Foster Hub, moving forward. Additionally, profits received from The Dumpster Doll Series would also be donated to the Foster Hub. Michelle’s humble heart would wear her well-deserved title as Founder and CEO of Foster Hub.
On January 15, 2025, Michelle finalized her dream at a groundbreaking ceremony at FosterHub, where she stood next to the woman who had helped bring her dreams to life.
“Words can’t describe how elated I am. What started with a suggestion to tell my story, then a dream in my head, now busting down a wall with Tina Husted (Ohio Lt. Gov’s wife) and John Carey (Ohio Department of Development). This is happening! Here is the beginning of changing the world!”- Michelle Mays
Michelle’s a foster warrior who survived unthinkable abuse and abandonment using her quick-wittedness and humor to navigate life. Now, she shines a brave, bright light to lead the way for others. And, if you’re lucky enough to meet her, you’ll find pure delight in her will to fight for what is right!
” Whenever you pray for yourself, your prayers won’t come true. When you pray for something for others, God answers your prayers.”- Michelle Mays.
More on FosterHub and the real and raw life of Michelle Mays in the DumpsterDoll Series.
Written by: Darian Rowles
Darian Rowles, Founder of Women Who Inspire,
Author of Uncork Your Life: A Guide to Getting Unstuck, Health Coach, Motivational Speaker, and Pilates Instructor.