Blog

People ask us all the time: what do you do over there? Here’s the honest answer — and why it matters more than any program description we could write.

---

It starts around nine in the morning.

I have walked into the Wonderfully Made space dozens of times now, and it still gets me every time. There’s something about the smell of a working kitchen — butter, vanilla, the particular warmth of cookies already in the oven — that tells you before anyone says a word: something good is happening here.

The space is on the Peachtree Church campus in Buckhead — the renovated Lodge, a former coffee shop that the church helped us transform into a commercial kitchen and activity room. Fellowship comes first. That is the intentional word Kitty and I use, and we mean it in the fullest sense. Not an icebreaker. Not a structured check-in. Fellowship — the kind where people are genuinely glad to see one another and say so out loud. Ian scans the room for birthdays to celebrate. Teon has already decided what is playing on the Bluetooth speaker. Troy has a joke ready. Lily arrives with her coloring book, her Disney Princess UNO cards, and a notebook full of recipes and song ideas.

Then the morning unfolds.

Some days it is the bakery — measuring brown sugar, mixing dough, bagging chocolate chip cookies one at a time with the focus of people who take their work seriously. I want to be clear about this: the Wonder Makers are not supervised hobbyists in the kitchen. They are bakers. They know the recipes. They know the ratios. Some of them have gone on to work in commercial bakeries. These are not people who need to be kept busy. They are people who need a room worthy of who they already are.

Other days it is sports — pickleball on the court, basketball with Coach John, kickball that Lola wins more often than anyone will officially admit. Some days it is Zumba, which Ian approaches with full commitment. Some days it is art or science or music, with Maddie on the keyboard and Sophie singing and a room full of people who forget, for a Tuesday morning, that the world ever told them they didn’t belong somewhere.

“Community doesn’t always require more time. Sometimes it just requires more intention.”

Around 12:30, the morning ends. But the relationships don’t. The Wonder Makers go home to families who will ask what happened today — and the answer, consistently, is that something good happened. Something real.

One of the things I am proudest of in the system Kitty and I built is the Wonder Crew — our volunteer community. Suzanne Howard, who is 53 years old and plays kickball every Tuesday and calls the whole thing life-changing for herself. Lynn, who spent twelve years with her family in special needs camps and found us when she was looking for the next room. Kathy, whose brother has special needs and who shows up because this community is personally meaningful to her. These are not generic volunteers. They are people with real stakes in this work.

I built the infrastructure that holds all of this. The systems, the scheduling, the organizational structure that makes it possible for Kitty’s calling to run five days a week without collapsing under its own weight. That is my lane and I love it. But on a Tuesday morning, when I look around that room and see what the infrastructure is actually holding — the joy, the belonging, the people who have found their people — every spreadsheet was worth it.

What happens on a Tuesday at Wonderfully Made is not complicated to describe. It is hard to replicate without intention, without care, without the conviction that every person in the room is fearfully and wonderfully made and deserves to be treated that way from the moment they walk through the door.

But it is also, at its core, just a Tuesday. People showing up for one another. Cookies in the oven. Music on the speaker. Someone celebrating a birthday. Someone who can reach the top shelf doing exactly that.

Just a Tuesday. The best kind.

Come see for yourself

Wonderfully Made welcomes volunteers who want to experience a Tuesday firsthand. No special skills required — just a willingness to show up. Visit wonderfullymadecommunity.org/get-involved/volunteer to learn more.