Middle Tennessee
Homeless Outreach & Basic Needs
Hot meals, clothing and hygiene items for neighbours sleeping rough, every other weekend, at roughly $12 a meal.
Support thisEvery gift, accounted for · Serving since 2002
Not a category. Not a statistic. A woman starting her first business. A child back in a classroom. Someone sleeping rough who gets a hot meal and their name asked before anything else. Give here and we will tell you exactly what it bought.
Who we are
Plenty of people care. Far fewer are still there in year three, when the photographs have stopped and the work is only work. Since 2002, in Nashville and in Umunya, Anambra State, we have built this organisation around staying.
We are volunteer-run and deliberately narrow. We take on what we can finish. Every figure on this site is one we can evidence, and where we cannot, we say so.
About us
A message from our President
Since our founding in 2002, that conviction has guided everything Bastion Foundation does — in Nashville, and across the Atlantic in Umunya, Anambra State. To us, partnership means more than financial support: shared purpose, responsible stewardship, and respect for the people and communities we serve.
Prof. Anthony Ejiofor, Ph.D. · Founder and President
Read the full messageWhat we do
Each one exists because a need was documented first, and because the gap was one we could actually close. Not the easiest story. The one in front of us.
Hot meals, clothing and hygiene items for neighbours sleeping rough, every other weekend, at roughly $12 a meal.
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Business training, mentoring which $250 covers training and ₦30,000 seed capitalfor each widowed mother rebuilds through something she owns.
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Tuition, uniforms, books and exam fees that keep orphaned children enrolled, followed up year on year.
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Newcomer orientation, practical workshops and trusted referrals, built on relationships first rather than paperwork.
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Case-by-case help for urgent, verified medical need, for people with limited access to care and nowhere else to turn.
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Rebuilding Central School Umunya for 523 children, in a building damaged since the civil war and never properly repaired.
Support thisThe ongoing project
Central School Umunya was damaged during the civil war and never properly repaired. It is still teaching. It is still not safe. Every morning, 523 children walk into it anyway.
The drawings are done. The costings are done. $250,000 finishes it, pursued in phases. The only thing still missing is the money.
See the project
How we work
We never arrive with a solution and go looking for somewhere to apply it. Five steps, in this order, every time.
We start with the community and the documented need, not with what we already know how to deliver.
We shape the response around what is actually missing, and check it against what others are already doing well.
Volunteers, partners and local leaders deliver together. Nothing runs from a distance.
We count at the point of service, not afterwards, and publish what a gift actually bought.
What ran short, what failed, what to change before the next one. Reported honestly, including the parts that did not work.
Two people, the same team, no distance between themOur son, then a senior at UT Knoxville, noticed a man in the line wearing a UT shirt and cap just like his own. They got talking. The man had played football for UT. He collected his food and left, then came back a few minutes later with a brand new UT cap, a gift.
He still says it is the most valuable piece of UT kit he owns.
Ways to partner
Four ways in, and money is only one of them. For some of what we need, a cheque is honestly not the most useful thing you could hand us.
Pray for beneficiaries and project leaders consistently, and share this work with churches, civic groups and networks who might stand with us too.
One-time or monthly. Monthly is the most useful of the two: it lets us commit to a child’s fees for a full year rather than hoping.
Professional expertise in education, health, construction, monitoring or grant writing. Grant writers especially: that skill converts directly into meals and school fees.
Introduce us to donors, volunteers, caterers and institutional partners. Many employers also match employee gifts, which quietly doubles what you give.
Donor confidence
You are entitled to know where your money went and what it did. Transparency, documentation, prudent oversight and measurable reporting. If we cannot evidence a number, we do not publish it.
An IRS-recognised 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit, EIN 35-2213891, based at 6937 Stone Run Drive, Nashville, TN 37211. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Give to the school and it buys blocks and roofing. Give to the outreach and it buys food. We will not quietly move it somewhere else.
Governing documents, programme reports and financials are available to supporters on request, including the parts that did not go to plan.
From the field
Twelve volunteers is the whole operation. An honest look at what actually limits this programme, and what would change it.
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246 widows trained since 2016. Hundreds more waiting, and funding is the only thing keeping them there.
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Real photographs, real gaps, and why we will not publish a number we cannot yet back up.
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Another way to give
Made for More, by our CEO Nonye Ejiofor, is available now on Amazon. Buying a copy is not just a purchase, it is a deposit toward rebuilding a school that has been standing since 1962 and has not been properly repaired since. Five hundred and twenty-three children are waiting on the other side of it.
Buy on AmazonStand with us
Give once, give monthly, or come and serve a Saturday. Every gift is tied to something specific, and we will tell you what it bought. Bastion Foundation, Inc. is an IRS-recognised 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit, EIN 35-2213891.