Michelle Mays

Michelle Mays is the Founder and CEO of FosterHub and a former emancipated foster youth who transformed lived experience into lasting impact. Having navigated the foster care system firsthand, she leads with rare credibility, grit, and vision, building bridges for young people aging out of care so they are never truly on their own.

Under her leadership, FosterHub has become a lifeline for emancipated foster youth, equipping them with mentorship, resources, housing connections, and community rooted in dignity and opportunity. Michelle’s work is not charity. It is systems change wrapped in compassion.

She is a co author of the memoir series Dumpster Doll, written to illuminate the often unseen realities of foster care and to extend hope to those walking that same uncertain road. Her book Dumpster Doll: The Early Years was added to the national reading list of Court Appointed Special Advocates and has influenced policy changes on the West Coast regarding how children are removed from their homes. What began as personal testimony has become a catalyst for reform.

Michelle’s leadership extends across Ohio through service on multiple boards, including:

Hideaway Hills Board of Trustees, where she and her family reside

Vice President of 740 Rescue Kitchen

Ohio CASA Board of Directors

Ohio University Mentoring Emancipated Foster Youth initiative

Downtown Logan Board

Her influence weaves through community, policy, advocacy, and education, each role connected by one clear mission: to ensure foster youth are supported, seen, and strengthened.

At home, Michelle is a devoted wife, the proud mother of three successful grown sons, and a grandmother to two. Family is both her anchor and her evidence. Proof that cycles can be broken. That legacy can be rewritten.

Michelle Mays does not simply speak about resilience. She builds it into systems, policy, and people. Through FosterHub and beyond, she continues to ensure that young adults aging out of foster care are, in every sense, on their own but never alone.