The nonprofit organization Second Heart Homes, works to provide housing for homeless individuals in Sarasota.

But what makes these houses homes are the professional works of art hung throughout the space.

See how artists and philanthropists come together for this worthy cause.

Art Avenue is an international art gallery on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

I love to do many things besides the traditional art exhibits from the artists when they appear here live.

But I also love to give back to the community.

However, this is a twist.

I met Megan four years ago and I fell in love with her concept called Second Heart Homes, and we teamed up and it's been nothing but a fun ride ever since.

It is such an incredible feeling to have the community really come together for this event that has grown.

To take it to a thousand.

Let's jump to 1000.

The art auction plays an integral role in the whole program that Meghan has conceived.

We have every year, I invite my top 25 local artists to submit one work donated 100% and the gallery gets zero.

100% of the money goes to Second Heart Homes.

I started doing wood sculptures about 20 years ago, and it's just sort of evolved into something, and I call it brain candy.

So this piece is created by 93 year old Charles Rosenblum, who was a local sarasotan.

But he also is quite heavily involved in supporting nonprofits the arts.

Besides all that, as an art gallery owner, I happen to like what he does.

Each piece of wood is hand carved.

Each piece of wood is hand-painted and each piece of wood is hand glued.

The universe helped me get this idea for Second Heart Homes.

I was a waitress and I was going to college getting my master's degree and thought I was going to be a therapist or something like that, because I had been homeless when I was four years old, so I knew I wanted to work with the homeless.

And there was a homeless man that was literally living on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant, and he was making these incredible drawings.

And it really drew me to him because I wanted to know more about what his inspiration was, what they meant.

And so I sat down on the sidewalk with him, and we became friends for years.

Then one day he went missing and I knew his real name.

So I found him at Sarasota memorial hospital, and I asked what his discharge plans were.

He told me he was ready to get off the streets.

So there it was.

That's how it was birthed.

He was homeless for 25 years, and I set up his place, started coordinating his outpatient medical care and any kind of appointments he needed, and was really like his concierge support.

And that's how the model was birthed.

I knew once I had him off the streets.

If that was impossible, there's more.

Now we're a 501c3 not for profit organization called Second Heart Homes, where our mission is to revive the dignity of homeless adults with mental illnesses through housing support and love.

Today we have 12 homes.

We have 68 formerly homeless men and women off the streets who are vulnerable, who need love and support and accountability and a place to call home not just a house, but a home.

I was adopted at the age of six.

I went through 19 foster care houses.

Life after adoption wasn't easy.

It wasn't.

It wasn't good at all.

Abuse was not uncommon that led into incarcerations.

And I went homeless with my brother John, and we were homeless together for ten years.

My 45th arrest, I was sitting in my jail cell and I just got tired of seeing brick walls.

I got tired of hearing doors slam.

That's when I met Megan.

And, uh, I can still remember getting in the car.

We drove to the house on central.

I was like, can I live here forever?

And she kind of, like, looks back at me like, yeah, yeah, you can.

It is incredibly important to have artwork in the homes.

We're really thinking about the impact on mental health and how you interact with the environment when you've been homeless, sleeping on the sidewalk, and now you have a nice piece of art to wake up to.

There's nothing like that.

It's not even comparable.

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

I would try to draw out everything that goes on inside my brain.

It helps with my mental health to draw and get appreciation for the work that I do.

It inspires me to keep going.

The fact that anybody would even spend a little bit of time looking at my art, and the fact that it's in an art auction.

It blows my mind.

This is not just a mission of helping the homeless.

This is this is a mission about the arts collaborating to help the homeless.

It all started with art.

The gentleman on the sidewalk.

So everything has come full circle.

When Paul asked me to be the featured artist, I just really immediately said, yes, I will do it.

And the reason is in Chinese, which means when you have a life in this, in, in this body, you you committed to helping people, you know, this picture can bring money or people look at the picture and then they see a great example in our society and how things get done and how the young just take the lead and then start.

This organization is so admirable and it's so inspirational as well.

So I want to present that her truly to the society see her.

I just get so much joy that knowing that these art pieces are going to be appreciated by a group of people that have come together whatever way, however way they came together, they are just so profoundly affected by the beauty of their walls and it makes me so happy.

To learn more, visit secondhearthomes.org.