A woman known to most as “Queen” sports her signature royal purple nails, eyeglasses and custom shirt as she drives her pickup through the Mill City neighborhood.
She arrives at a familiar vacant lot. Week by week, she and an army of volunteers turn the nearly bare patch of land into what they consider a place of care and dignity.
Rhonda Willingham, 69, begins her Saturday morning ritual, unpacking a speaker for gospel music, a check-in table, hand sanitizer, prayer cards, condoms and a miniature grocery cart filled with packets of fruity drink mix.
As volunteers trickle in, she sways her shoulders to the music and gets to work. Her personality, sincerity and community work have attracted other charities to join the effort.
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Willingham’s T-shirt bears the logo for her nonprofit, Making It Count Inc. On the back, the word “QUEEN” stretches across her shoulders in bold, white letters.
Dozens of people gather in the parking lot of a convenience store across the street, waiting to be invited into what they call “Deliverance Alley,” the lot Willingham purchased in 2016. There, the cold are clothed, the hungry are fed catered William’s Chicken, and many are offered hygiene supplies and a portable shower.
“I know what it feels like to not have what you need when you really need it,” said Willingham, who lives in Plano.
A 65-year-old lifelong Mill City resident, who wears a T-shirt and a hospital band around his wrist, says through clattering teeth that he was released from a hospital that morning. Willingham shouts orders while volunteers swoop in with a chair and help him into a sweatshirt, gloves and a beanie hat.
Volunteer Nicole Davison with Purses with Purpose and Epic Fellowship, helps Mill City resident Larry Williams into a chair and sweatshirt on a cold Saturday morning, Dec. 6, 2025, in Dallas. While shivering, Williams told Making It Count Inc. founder Rhonda Willingham he was recently discharged from the hospital and came to “Deliverance Alley” to receive aid.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
New volunteers and donors arrive mostly through word-of-mouth or run-ins with Willingham.
Daniel White, a 25-year-old from Lewisville, says he met Willingham last August, while dropping off food at a homeless shelter and worship center not far from the lot on Metropolitan and Second avenues. Willingham invited him to volunteer on Saturdays, he said. He’s consistently helped out ever since.
“Her only rule is, treat others with kindness,” White said. “Everyone out here just respects her.”
Journey to sobriety and charity
Volunteers who make it to the nonprofit’s distribution days receive a first-hand recounting of her journey from homelessness and addiction to sobriety and charity work.
Almost 19 years ago, Willingham experienced what she describes as a divine intervention on the property.
After struggling with a crack addiction and living in an abandoned house a street over from the lot she now owns, she says a divine voice told her to “say goodbye” to that lifestyle.
She says she stopped using drugs and made a pact to help others alongside Rodney Willingham, who was also homeless. They are now husband and wife.
“I made a vow to God when He delivered me to this property that I would give back and I would do what needed to be done for the people,” Willingham said.
Shortly after, she began her charity work. She opened a boarding home and fed the homeless, she said.
Rhonda Willingham organizes a crowd of Mill City residents and homeless waiting in the cold to receive food, clothing, and hygiene products at “Deliverance Alley,” Willingham’s lot across the street, on Dec. 6, 2025, in Dallas. Families with children were permitted to enter first. Willingham serves anyone in need on the property every Saturday. “If there’s someone in [need of] help and I have it, they’re gonna get it,” Willingham said.
Angela Piazza / Staff Photographer
In 2016, she purchased the Metropolitan Avenue lot with money she inherited from her father. Two years later, Making It Count Inc. was established as a nonprofit.
With the help of volunteers and other charity organizations, the nonprofit gives away clothing and other supplies every Saturday morning. On Wednesdays, the group holds a “community wash day” at a nearby laundromat.
Making It Count Inc. has expanded beyond the Mill City neighborhood. With the assistance from Willingham’s husband, the organization mows lawns and paints houses around Dallas-Fort Worth.
Jasmyn Beasley, a 33-year-old Dallas resident, began volunteering with Willingham in 2023 when her family’s nonprofit joined forces with Making It Count Inc. She said she was drawn to Willingham’s sincerity.
“She was once in a lifestyle and now no longer in a lifestyle,” Beasley says while sorting donated clothes by gender and size on a tarp in the grass. “The fact that she has consistently, every Saturday, come back and given back to the people — in a sense, they see her as the Queen.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.