TWO BARRIERS. ONE MACHINE.

In 2019 we picked up cameras and started filming documentaries about homelessness. We weren’t sure where it would lead; we only knew these were stories that deserved to be heard. The young people we met gave us the name that stuck: BeHeard. On October 13, 2020, BeHeard Movement became official, a grassroots organization built on one belief: people experiencing homelessness deserve dignity, not just services.

For five years we kept showing up and sharing what we saw, one story at a time, and people listened. The messages kept coming from all over the country: “I wish I lived in Oklahoma so I could volunteer.” Some people even flew across the country just to volunteer for a single day, and we were grateful for every one of them.

But most people who wanted to help simply didn’t live close enough, and volunteering, the way it has always worked, depends on being in the right place at the right time. We had a community that wanted to show up and no way for them to do it. At the same time, we kept running into a gap on the street: most services close around 5 PM, and the need doesn’t.

So we started asking a different question: what if volunteers could serve from anywhere in the world, and neighbors could get help any time they needed it? The answer became the BeSeen Machine, a smart locker with a screen, placed where help is hardest to find after 5 PM. A neighbor walks up, a live volunteer says hello from across the country, and a locker opens with what they need.

Since then the idea has earned an Innovation Award and the United Way People’s Choice Award, and United Way of Tulsa came on as our founding innovation sponsor. On October 2, 2026 we launched phase two, open every Friday from 10 AM to 10 PM. The BeSeen Foundation grew out of BeHeard Movement and we still collaborate with BeHeard. Every step has been shaped by neighbors, including people like John, who tested the machine before he was housed.