Chattanooga State sophomore Matt Guider said homeless people don’t always look the same. In some cases, he said, they may be students.

The 20-year-old business management major founded an organization earlier this year that provided a homeless family transitional housing. He hopes to be able to provide housing for up to 10 homeless students for the next school year in the fall.

For his efforts in starting Love Chattanooga, Mr. Guider was chosen the winner from all Tennessee Board of Regents schools of the statewide Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award given by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

Chattanooga State also presented him the Above and Beyond Award for his work.

QWhat is your organization, and what does it do?

A Basically, our target group is homeless students, providing transitional housing for (those) in college and giving them a roof over their heads while they’re in a program. The other group we’re targeting is permanent housing for low-income families. With the current rise in (home) foreclosures, there’s a lot of homes empty and a lot of families on the street.

Q Do you work together with other groups?

AWe are a member of the Chattanooga Homeless Coalition and are currently working with them and teaming up and partnering with other groups. That way, everyone’s not reinventing the wheel, so to speak, and we can use each other’s strengths to work better together.

QWhat motivated you to start this organization?

A I graduated from Collegedale Academy. We as a school got really involved in a nonprofit organization called Invisible Children, which deals with orphans in Uganda. We worked a lot with that program, and we’re now in college and we wanted to do something here in the city we grew up in — something for our own back yard.

QHow does your faith impact your efforts?

A I always kind of felt called to help other people, to be an influence in the community. It talks in the Bible a lot about “when I was thirsty, you gave me drink; when I didn’t have any clothes, you clothed me,” and things like that. That’s something as a group we really took to heart as kind of going outside our comfort zone to help.

QDo you plan on making social work a career?

A I would like to make it my career. I’ve kind of always wanted to do something in business, and this bridges the business side of me and the side that really wants to go out and change the world. I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship and starting companies and stuff like that. With a nonprofit organization, I get both sides of that.