Our Founder’s Story
Roots on Roxbury Road
Ashley Wilson grew up in the Euclid and Cleveland area, but the story of The Living Wells Community and Development Center really begins decades earlier, on Roxbury Road in East Cleveland.
Ashley’s grandmother, Jennie Moore, moved to Cleveland from Mississippi as a teenager. She settled in East Cleveland with her husband, James Moore, and together they raised ten children. It was in their home on Roxbury Road that Ashley spent some of the most formative days of her life.
“Mama” and her grandfather’s house wasn’t just a family gathering place — it was a community hub. Neighbors knew each other by name. People stopped by simply to visit. Doors were open, and everyone belonged. It was there that Ashley first learned that family runs deeper than blood — a lesson that would shape everything she went on to build.
A Question That Started It All
During her senior year at Cleveland State University, Ashley gathered a group of powerful women around her and asked a single question: Where do we start?
The room grew quiet as everyone reflected. Each woman named her own tie or desire to work in East Cleveland — the city that had raised her, shaped her, or held a piece of her family’s story. It became clear, unanimously, that if community restoration was going to happen, it had to begin at the heart of the city: its family, its culture, its resilience.
That meeting was the spark that became The Living Wells Community and Development Center — an organization rooted in faith in Christ Jesus and dedicated to the well-being of families.
A Birthday Wish That Became a Movement
Ashley’s heart for community showed up long before the organization had a name. In 2017, Fox 8 News and The Plain Dealer featured her “Birthday Wish” — a decision to celebrate her own birthday not with gifts, but by collecting gently used prom dresses and turning them into a boutique-style shopping experience for young women who needed one.
With support from her high school, Villa Angela-St. Joseph, along with friends, Euclid’s Greenhouse, and the surrounding community, what started as a birthday wish became a glimpse of what was possible when people show up for each other — a preview of the work still to come.
Carrying the Legacy Forward
Today,
Ashley is an advocate for mental health, equity, and families — values that trace directly back to Roxbury Road, where she first understood what it meant to feel safe, seen, and cared for by an entire community.
Finding Healing Through Art
Ashley’s connection to the arts began in 8th grade, after years of hearing that she couldn’t sing. Instead of walking away from music, she leaned in — and what she found was healing. That personal discovery became the foundation for one of the organization’s most vital programs: HeARTwork, which integrates art into mental health and self-expression.
Through HeARTwork, the same lesson Ashley learned as a young girl gets passed on to others: that creative expression can be a path toward healing, confidence, and voice — especially for those who’ve been told theirs doesn’t matter.
A Personal Relationship with Christ
At just 13 or 14 years old, Ashley gave her life to Christ. She found solace in the teaching and truth of a Savior who died for her and gave her new life — a personal decision that has shaped every part of who she is since.
For Ashley, faith isn’t a program or a Sunday habit; it’s a relationship, one she believes is deeply personal to every individual. She holds firmly to the belief that her relationship with Christ is woven into everything she does — and that without Him, she doesn’t know where she’d be.
That conviction is why faith sits at the center of The Living Wells Community and Development Center. It isn’t an added feature of the work — it’s the reason the work exists at all
Cultivating Space Where Faith, Family, and Community Thrive
This is more than a slogan — it’s the blueprint for everything The Living Wells Community and Development Center does.
• Faith is the foundation, rooted in Christ Jesus, the same faith that anchored “Mama” and Grandfather James Moore’s home on Roxbury Road.
• Family is the definition Ashley learned as a child — that it runs deeper than blood, and that community can hold you the way family does.
• Community is the promise fulfilled — East Cleveland, restored one relationship, one program, and one open door at a time.
From Roxbury Road to HeARTwork, every part of Ashley’s story points to the same truth: healing happens in spaces where people are seen, supported, and given room to grow. The Living Wells Community and Development Center exists to cultivate exactly that space — for East Cleveland, and for every family who walks through its doors.
Today, Ashley is an advocate for mental health, equity, and families — values that trace directly back to Roxbury Road, where she first understood what it meant to feel safe, seen, and cared for by an entire community.
The Living Wells Community and Development Center exists to recreate that feeling for Cleveland: a place where family, faith, and resilience aren’t just remembered — they’re actively rebuilt, one relationship at a time.