Restoring Dignity Through Food | Brittney Brown
Season 3 of Signature Required kicks off with Brittney Brown, Director of Mission Advancement at The Store, for a conversation about food insecurity, dignity, and the power of choice. Brittney shares how The Store is rethinking traditional food assistance by creating a grocery shopping experience where families can choose the food that works for them, while also opening up about the personal journey that led her to serve Nashville’s most vulnerable. From community partnerships and volunteers to faith, generosity, and second chances, this conversation explores why meeting a need can be about so much more than food.
About Brittney Brown
Brittney Brown is the Director of Mission Advancement at The Store, a Nashville nonprofit providing free groceries through a dignified, choice-based model. With more than a decade of experience serving individuals and families facing homelessness and food insecurity, Brittney now helps connect donors, partners, and volunteers with The Store’s mission. Her own experiences with illness, single motherhood, and financial uncertainty have shaped her passion for helping people navigate difficult seasons with dignity, choice, and hope.
Restoring Dignity
The Store is a Nashville nonprofit working to address food insecurity in a way that puts dignity and choice first. Rather than receiving a predetermined box of food, customers are able to shop for the groceries that work best for their families, at no cost. By creating an experience that feels more like a traditional grocery store, The Store provides more than food. It gives individuals and families the freedom to make their own choices while receiving support during a difficult season.
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Spencer Patton: Welcome to Signature Required. It is intended for Tennesseans by Tennesseans.
Carli Patton: Welcome to season three of Signature Required. We're so excited for everything we have in store for you. This first episode is amazing. We filmed on site. We had the best time. We just wanna give you a disclaimer at the front that we talk about mental health challenges, including suicide. If that is a triggering topic for you, please take care of yourself.
Feel free to skip or fast-forward. But it is a great episode, and we hope you'll join us.
Spencer Patton: Brittany Brown, Director of Mission Advancement for The Store, welcome to Signature Required.
Brittney Brown: Thank you.
Spencer Patton: So we are not sitting in our normal studio. For those that are just listening, they wouldn't know that. So where are we right now?
Brittney Brown: We are at our second location in partnership [00:01:00] with Centennial Hospital.
We are so excited to have a second location. We opened this one up in January.
Spencer Patton: What's around us here? So for those that don't have the visual-
Brittney Brown: We are in our beautiful produce section, which I like to call the star of the show here at The Store. We are just set up exactly like a grocery store, but our produce is really beautiful, the whole section.
Spencer Patton: So I understand The Store to be a nonprofit that is a free grocery for those that are struggling with food insecurity, right?
Carli Patton: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Um, and when I hear a concept of free groceries, my antenna, my suspicion, like, immediately goes up- ... because I just say, "Well, how does that work?" And I don't know if that's sustainable.
Like, so talk us through what this is. For someone that's never heard of The Store, we're in the shadows of Centennial Hospital here, what is it?
Brittney Brown: Yeah. So we are just feeding people in this really beautiful way. Uh, when you're struggling with food insecurity, [00:02:00] oftentimes you'll go to a food bank. You'll stand in line for a box of food that was pre-prepared without your dietary restrictions in mind or your cultural preferences or your children's preferences, right?
Kids are, kids are picky. And so we are just a little bit different in the fact that we're trying to really uphold the dignity piece, and we're providing people just a normal grocery store shopping experience. So they come, they grab a cart, and they just simply go grocery shopping. There's no stigma.
There's no shame. The best part of all, the babies that walk through our door, they don't have any idea they're not at a, at a grocery store where mom or dad pays at the end. They just know this grocery store has a play place where they can go play while mom, dad, or grandma goes and shops. So it's just such a beautiful way to remind people that their choice matters, and oftentimes it will empower them with other things in their lives a- at the same time.
So it's just, it's my favorite thing ever. Yeah.
Carli Patton: I think people underestimate the power and the memory around going to the grocery store.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Carli Patton: [00:03:00] Even just a quick aside, Spence and I when we were dating, you know when you're in college, all you want is to get off campus and feel a moment of normalcy. Yeah. We would drive 20 miles away from the campus to go to a 24-hour Harris Teeter.
Uh-huh. And we would grocery shop for snacks and things for our dorm rooms, and that was our date night. And I just think all of those little pieces, the lights and the smell, and to be able to touch and pick up and look- When you think about food insecurity, you think, "Oh, they should be glad to get food."
Brittney Brown: Right.
Carli Patton: And the truth is, I would imagine everyone is g- glad to get food. But when you can give back the dignity of that multi-sensory memory-making experience for your family, that's just one core of memory level deeper.
Brittney Brown: Yeah. It's really beautiful way, and, I mean, because they're choosing the food that they're leaving with, there's less waste.
We had a guy that attended one of our lunch and learns not too long ago, and he worked at his church's food pantry. And he said [00:04:00] after every food pantry day, they would have to go and check the bus stop because so many of the people had pulled out the food that they weren't gonna eat. Here, they're choosing those foods, and so they are gonna eat all the food that they leave with, which we really love that part, too.
And just like what you said, a lot of us take grocery shopping for granted. Before I worked here, I used to complain about grocery. Like, "Oh, I've gotta go to the grocery store. It's so packed," blah, blah, blah. But then I started working here, and I was like, "Oh, my goodness. I feel like a jerk that grocery shopping is a privilege that I never really considered."
I still mainly do pickup, but still, I mean, it really is such a privilege to be able to just grab a cart and choose the food that you leave with
Carli Patton: And can we spend a little bit of time on The Store's origin story? Yeah. Because I'm unapologetically a super fan of The Store's founders. So can you tell me a little bit about who they are and what they're up to?
Brittney Brown: Yeah. So they're two people. You might know their names, Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. A really fun fact that many people might not [00:05:00] know is Kim's mom was actually a fundraiser, so giving back was very much ingrained into who she was as a child growing up, also into Brad as well. And so they have two boys, and maybe they were a little rowdy one day, and Kim said, "You know, the- we- we're gonna go volunteer."
And so they ended up at a choice-based grocery store in Santa Barbara, California, It was very much the same. You- the people could come in and shop for the food that they wanted, and they just instantly fell in love with the model. They went back and became a very large piece of their mission, and they finally just decided, "You know, we've gotta bring this beautiful thing, this idea, this wonderful concept to Nashville."
And so in 2017, they filed for their 501[c][3], and then 2020, March of 2020, which was probably one of the worst months in history in Nashville- Oh, no ... they opened the doors, then a tornado, then COVID. So they had to quickly pivot the model from an in-store grocery store shopping [00:06:00] experience to a delivery service.
So they were delivering to elderly, to shut-ins, to people that were experiencing homelessness but were being housed in hotels. And so they did that for about a year and a half, and then they were able to pivot back to the original grocery store shopping model.
Spencer Patton: So we're sitting in The Store, but why is it named The Store?
Like, did we run out of creative ideas- ... or, like, why The Store?
Brittney Brown: Yep, just out of good ideas. Yeah. No, it was very much intentional why they named it The Store, and it was to reduce any stigma or shame that was associated with, say, a mom was trying to tell her kids, "Get in the car, we've gotta go to the food pantry," versus, "Get in the car, kids, we gotta go to The Store."
And so that was just to minimize any kind of stigma or shame for kiddos. Again, they don't know the difference when they're walking through these stores, that they're not at a regular grocery store. So yes, very much on purpose.
Carli Patton: I'm into literal naming. That works.
Brittney Brown: Yeah. It sometimes get a little tricky sometimes though, too.
Yeah. People are like, "What store?" I'm like, "Oh, no, The Store. The Store."
Carli Patton: Capital [00:07:00] T-H-E.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: It's a really interesting model that when you think about it, for a normal food bank where you volunteer and you show up and, you know, you've got 400 bags of the same type of beans and 400 of this thing, and you're just an assembly line of dropping everything in, on some level, as a volunteer, you get it to say, "Well, you know, they didn't order this.
This is just what they're gonna get that day."
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: But I'd never really put it together in the same way that- There are real dietary restrictions, real reasons why all of the money and effort and coordination that it took to deliver them the food, and then that food doesn't even get eaten for a lot of different reasons.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: How many models are there of, like, food distribution? Because I'm, I'm just trying to understand a distinction between [00:08:00] the creativity of this here versus just putting together bags of food that are the same. Like, I, I just am curious to, to hear more about that.
Brittney Brown: Yeah. I mean, there's lots of different models.
I will say this particular way of feeding people is starting to really catch on. It has been proven as a best practice in food insecurity spaces. And so it really is, I mean, there's some local food pantries here that are trying to just implement a smaller choice-based moment. Even if it's not the whole thing, they can choose between certain things.
Um, but I will say just from a volunteer perspective here, our volunteers love it here. I mean, we were voted number one volunteer experience by Hands On Nashville because they're seeing the faces of food insecurity. They're interacting with them, and oftentimes it's faces that you wouldn't really think.
You know, especially right now with food insecurity at a 10-year high. Groceries are so expensive. And so our, our volunteers are getting to just really [00:09:00] connect with our customers on such a grander scale than sitting in a back room packing a box of food knowing it's gonna get into the hands of the people that need it, but you don't really get that heart-filled moment like our volunteers do.
I
Carli Patton: wanna jump on one thing you just said. Food insecurity in Nashville is at a 10- 10-year high ... year high. And if you look around at all of the growth, all of the development, all of the people moving in here, the adding of jobs, all of that, I don't think the average Tennessean would understand that that is true.
Can you speak and shed light onto that?
Brittney Brown: Yeah. I mean, it's no surprise groceries are wildly expensive right now, and then the cost of living in Nashville is insane, and what it's doing is pushing people out even farther. And so many of, like, the families that we're serving, they're working. They're doing all the things.
They just can't make ends meet. You know? They can't make rent, and medical bills, and childcare, and gas, and groceries all fit into their budget, no matter how many [00:10:00] jobs they have. And so we're just really grateful to be the, the people that can stand in that gap and provide them with not just food, but, like, nourishing food and this wonderful ability to just simply shop for the groceries that you wanna feed yourself and your children.
Spencer Patton: Hm. Can you help paint a picture of the people that come and shop in the store? Because if you asked me, I really think I'd have a wide bell curve. Like, I could say everything from homeless to families with jobs that just like what you described- groceries just do not work in the budget this month. So can you help just paint the picture of the individuals that come here, whether there's any qualifications that are necessary, any, uh, standards?
Just help, help us understand who that is.
Brittney Brown: Yeah. So we have one qualification only, and you just have to be at 200% of the poverty level or below to be eligible to shop with us. So that's the only requirement. We're low [00:11:00] barrier because we don't feel like you should have to jump through a ton of hoops to feed yourself or your family, and we're proud of that.
Um, our shoppers look like everyday people. We do exper- We do have some people that are experiencing homelessness. We have an individual, a veteran, a single mom. We have seniors on a fixed income. So it, it is a, a great variety of faces that come through our door, and lots of the families in our program, just one that we did a customer testimonial for last week, her husband is working so hard.
She's raising two daughters with autism, and they just can't make ends meet. And that is really the bulk of who we're serving, people that are really doing their hardest. They just can't seem to catch up.
Carli Patton: And now with two locations, I imagine you have volunteers that are coming on a consistent basis, shoppers that are coming on a consistent basis, so you actually really get to know- Yeah
some of these families in a different way. I think that's really cool.
Brittney Brown: Yeah, one of the, my most favorite parts of our mission is that piece. Because families are [00:12:00] shopping with us every other week, we're a program-based shopping model, so they're with us for 18 months, and they're shopping every other week for that 18 months.
So what they end up finding outside of this beautiful food is this place of community and belonging. They're walking through the doors of a place where they're known by name. They're greeted with hugs. Their stories are known, like, "How was your doctor's appointment?" I saw one of our customers not too long ago.
Last week I was giving a tour and I saw him sitting on the bench, and I was like, "How was your surgery?" And you could just see his face light up, like, you remembered, and that's how all our volunteers and staff are. So it's just so important, and they're leaving with that reminder that they're, they're seen, they're valued, they're cared for, and that they matter, and a grocery, a grocery cart full of food.
Spencer Patton: Hmm. When you think about how many people you serve around, are most people driving here? Are they walking here? Do you have a understanding for the radius of where you're making the impact? Like, asked [00:13:00] another way, is the location next to Centennial Hospital important, or is it just a great place that is central?
Brittney Brown: Yeah, I mean, we have people travel from other counties to get to us. So if they can get to us, they can shop with us, and this has been a really good location. Centennial is one of our nonprofit or one of our partners that refers over to us, and so as they're seeing patients that are reporting to be food insecure, they can send them over to us.
So it's really important to us that we are able to get to the people that need us. Um, when we're thinking, like, long-term growth-wise, we're also trying to figure out how can we get food into the hands of the people that can't get to us, and what would that look like? And so we are- we have an expansion committee on our board, and we're all trying to really brainstorm other ways to get this beautiful mission and to the people that need us, and also be able to really capture that- that dignifying piece of choice.
So would that be an app where they can choose what groceries that get delivered? So it is something that's always [00:14:00] top of mind. Um, a lot of our shoppers, they'll drive, they'll Uber, they'll take the bus, they'll walk. For our walkers, we try to help get them wagons so they don't have to carry all these bags, and so we are trying to be mindful of all the different ways- That's so kind
that people use transportation or- or walk here. Yeah.
Carli Patton: Tell me about your partners. Did I read correctly that you have 70-plus different partners-
Brittney Brown: We do ...
Carli Patton: that you work with? So you're really focused on food insecurity.
Brittney Brown: We are. Yeah. We are focused on food insecurity, but we're also really focused on collaboration.
It's one of our core values. In 2024, there was, like, this pivotal moment where the board was like, "Okay, we're doing so great with food, so why don't we throw in all these other services?" And our CEO, he's so wise. He was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why don't we instead just stay in our lane and be good at what we're good at and support all these other nonprofits that are doing this amazing work of housing and recovery and workforce development?"
And so that's when we started our nonprofit pilot partnership [00:15:00] to serve the people that those nonprofits are serving because what we see is what ... I mean, there's so many amazing nonprofits in Middle Tennessee, right? And we don't wanna compete. What we really wanna do is if we collaborate, our impact is just gonna be so much greater overall in the community.
Mm-hmm. So one of the best examples that I like to give, 'cause I've seen it firsthand, is Safe Haven Family Shelter. They house families experiencing homelessness. I was the housing director there for five and a half years, and I saw how much money they would spend on food. So Safe Haven would house the family Then they would order an Instacart order to get those groceries delivered to the family and stock the pantry.
Now Safe Haven houses the family, and they send the family to us, and so they can take the money and the resources that they were gonna use on that food and use it towards more rental assistance for that family or for something else that the agency needs. So 72 nonprofits in the city are still counting on us to be their food resource for the people they serve, but the beauty of it is we can also refer out to them.
So if we have a [00:16:00] customer that's not enrolled in any other nonprofit services but tells us of a need, we can say, "Oh, we got a partner for that." And so we can refer out to them, too. So it's just such a beautiful way to collaborate, and we're just really, really grateful to have the opportunity to do that.
Carli Patton: Okay, I have to ask just logistically, we talk to nonprofits all the time. Educating a volunteer base to know that level of detail to serve your customers must be really tricky. It sounds like you have spectacular volunteers.
Brittney Brown: We have the most amazing volunteers on the planet, I will say. And what's so beautiful about it, so it takes 268 volunteers a week to run- Wow
both our locations. So they're- 268. 268, yes.
Carli Patton: And is that everything from stocking shelves-
Brittney Brown: Stocking shelves ... to helping people shop? Bagging groceries, doing the checkout. I mean, all the things. All the things. So it's a massive amount. I mean, we're predominantly volunteer-ran. They save us millions of dollars in our budget every year.
Mm-hmm. 'Cause if we were having to pay staff, we wouldn't be able to afford [00:17:00] to do this.
Carli Patton: Sure.
Brittney Brown: Food alone is the most, it's the most expensive thing in our budget, and so having to get all that, all those staff people, that would, it would kill us. We couldn't do it. And so I love our volunteers because so many of them aren't just coming one day a week.
They're coming multiple days a week. So we have, like, this core group of, like, star volunteers or VIP volunteers. They get different color aprons. Mm. And they know how to run this store better than, better than me, for certain. I mean, they can, they can run it without our ops team, even. They're fantastic.
They're full of so much love, and just, they build these special relationships with our customers that just, if you just sit back and watch, you might sob in the corner 'cause you're like- Mm ... "Oh my gosh, it's beautiful." Mm. Um, we have this one customer, she's elderly, and she is so beautiful and so sweet and kind.
Her name's Miss Eleanor. Bruce and Pascal, they were our volunteers of the year this year. Uh, they've now been- become her family. [00:18:00] Sh- Miss Eleanor calls them her son and her daughter. Pascal writes her letters because Miss Eleanor- Aw ... loves to write letters. It's just this beautiful The store is this beautiful place of community for not just our customers, but for our volunteers and our staff, and there's all these beautiful little elements that come into play where friendships are being made that probably wouldn't be made otherwise, and I just love it.
Carli Patton: Whenever we talk to nonprofits, I wanna ask this question, which is: How do you get involved? How do you volunteer? Is ... Your threshold is low for people that are facing food insecurity to be able to use the store, but what does it take to be a volunteer? 'Cause I think, I think there's a lot of people out there that just wanna feel needed.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Carli Patton: And like, they have a community and a place to go, and at certain seasons of life, that's really hard to do, and maybe your workplace isn't that for you, or maybe your- Yeah ... house isn't that for you. And it sounds like this could be not only a safe haven for your customers, but for a lot of potential volunteers too.
100%.
Brittney Brown: Yeah, 100%. There's lots of ways to [00:19:00] volunteer, and our volunteer base looks very different. I mean, a ton of our VIP, multiple-days-a-week volunteers are recently retirees, and so this is their newfound work, post-work. In fact, when I first started, Tony, one of our longest standing volunteers, I heard him on the phone with his wife, Alexandra, and he said, "Alexandra, I can't talk right now.
I'm at work." So he has two jobs post-retirement: golf and the store. And he is here multiple days a week, and there's ... That's true for so many of our recently retired, um, volunteers, and they really are the heartbeat of our mission, and we love them. But then we're also a great place for your workplace to come and do some, like, team-building bonding moments.
Let's bag groceries together and build teamwork and unity, and it's fantastic. And so we have corporate volunteers. Families will come. We even have a family volunteer day once a month, where you can bring your littles, 'cause the littles can't exactly do a grocery store shift because they can't be handling sacks of potatoes and whatnot, but they can come and stash bags for our unhoused [00:20:00] population or, uh, hygiene kits for our people.
And so we try to make sure that we're giving the opportunity to get involved with our mission. We make it very easy. You just sign up online on our website, and that everybody is welcome. We even have some garden plots at the Edgehill Community Garden, so if you like to garden, you can come and help us pull weeds, pull produce, plant produce, I mean, all the things.
So there's really something for everyone, no matter what, what kind of personality you have. If you're extrovert or introvert, you could come and stock shelves. I mean, it really is we welcome everyone and we need everyone. With 268 a week, we really do. We need lots of support.
Spencer Patton: So Brittany, to spend a little bit of time around you, it's really clear, like you have a great passion.
Your enthusiasm is infectious. Like, everything that you would hope for in someone that is in leadership in a nonprofit, like you hold those traits. Aw, thanks. Uh, so who is Brittany Brown? Like, what's your story? [00:21:00] 'Cause I think it would be easy, and a lot of people in nonprofit I think can feel just mission fatigue.
Yeah. Where especially with food insecurity, you feel like that no matter what you do, there's just never an end of the road. There's no cure to it. It's just an endless cycle. Yeah. And, and that wears on anybody. It's true. And, and so what's your story? Like, why do you carry the passion that you do?
Brittney Brown: Well, I mean, I will say I've been in nonprofit work for over a decade, and all the nonprofits that I've gotten to be a part of are so special and magical and great, but The Store has just this extra little element of magic and love that I can't even really, I can't even verbalize.
You just have to come and see it to, to understand it, but it is just really the most magical place I've ever gotten the opportunity to be a part of, and I'm just so grateful because it's easy to get people excited. I mean, I'm the fundraiser, and so I get this [00:22:00] beautiful opportunity to be the bridge between these amazing people with big hearts and deep pockets that wanna support this mission and be a part of something amazing, and then I'm here, and then these beautiful customers are on the other side.
And so it's just such a blessing to get to be that bridge, and I get to love on both, right? I get to love on our donors. I get to love on our customers. So I have the best job, yeah
Carli Patton: What made you wanna go into nonprofit work to begin with? 'Cause you have... You're super charismatic. I imagine you're amazing at sales.
You could have done anything. What made you pick- Yeah ... the nonprofit path?
Brittney Brown: I was actually in sales in 20- 2010. Um, I was working at Whirlpool. I was in inside sales, so it wasn't exactly my forte, but it was a great job. I was right out of college. And then I woke up, and I just did not feel good. Mm. And I was like, "What is going on?"
'Cause I've never been a person that has, like, health struggles. I'm like, "Something's not right." So I went to the doctor. They couldn't really figure out anything. Then I went to another doctor, then another [00:23:00] doctor. I went on short-term disability, and I was like, "What is happening?" And if you're, like, a 20-year-old woman, oftentimes if you say you don't feel good, they're like, "Oh, well, it's just stress, anxiety or whatever."
But they actually started to take me seriously, and they're like, "Oh, well, it could be a, might be a brain tumor. Let's do a brain scan." Wow. And so I, I was living in Knoxville at the time, came back to Nashville because my family was here, and just started going to doctors here. All my stuff and my house and everything was still in Knoxville, and just kept going to all these doctors, bouncing around from potential diagnoses that were kind of terrifying, from brain, brain tumor-
or pancreatic something. And it was like- Oh, my gosh ... "Oh, my gosh. Can't we just figure out what's wrong? I wanna get back to my life." They couldn't. And so my short-term disability ran out. I didn't have a diagnosis, so I lost everything. I lost my job, my house, everything. I put everything in storage.
Officially just packed up what I could and came back to Nashville and moved in with my dad. I was 28. I felt like crap every day. I drank a lot [00:24:00] because I was just... I mean, I loved Jesus, but I also loved Jack Daniels equally at the time. Um, and yeah, I was in a really dark place. I couldn't seem to find the answers that I needed, and it was like, "I know I'm not crazy.
I know I don't feel well. Like, what is happening?" And so I was a little bitter. I was bitter at life. I was angry at God. I was like, "Why would you let this happen? Like, what did I do? Like, what is happening?" And so, yeah, I got very suicidal. I even made a couple of suicide attempts. And then finally, the day after one of them, God was like, "Listen" Listen, are you ready?
Are you done yet? Are you about done? And I was like, "Fine, what?" And he was like, "If you let me, I can turn this into something beautiful, but you just have to surrender." And I was like, "Fine. You- it's on you. I've... a year of this, I quit." And so I started to take into account, because I continued to say, like, "I'm this 20-year-old loser, stuck at my dad's.
I have [00:25:00] no friends. All my friends are in Knoxville, like, ugh." And then I was like, wait a minute. What would have happened if I hadn't had my family here in Nashville to come home to? And what do people do when they have these moments of illness and they can't figure it out? I would've been homeless. And so I started thinking about that and praying about that, and I was like, well, maybe God's leading me to work in the unhoused population field.
And so I started seeking out different organizations that worked with people experiencing homelessness, but they're real protective and, and they should be. They wouldn't give the location of encampments and stuff. And I was like, this is great, but it's kind of the same as our mission. Like, you can go in the back and pack a box of food at a food bank, or you can come here and interact directly.
And I wanted to interact directly with people that were experiencing homelessness 'cause I just wanted to be like a hand of hope to them. I wanted to love on them and remind them that they matter. And so I finally had heard about a pretty large encampment at Fort Negley at the time. I read about it in the [00:26:00] newspaper.
I started making Facebook posts, this was around Christmas, and I collected like coats and snacks and I just showed up there with my mom and my stepdad one Christmas and I loved it. I was like, "Hi, I'm Brittany." "Merry Christmas." And they're like, "What are you doing, Brittany?" And so like I got to give them out the coats and stuff, and I just knew in my heart, like, found it.
God was like, "This is it And I loved it. And so I was still dealing with illness. I was working for my mom in real estate a few hours a day, and on the days that I felt okay, I would go around and pick up supplies, and I just kept making Facebook posts for, like, tents, propane, snacks, clothes, whatever they would need.
Then I would do the deliveries on Sunday, and I just, I loved it so much. And then in 2016, I unpreparedly found myself pregnant. I met a guy. It's always with a guy. And, um, I thought, "Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna have a baby, and then I'm sick. Like, how am I gonna... What? Oh, I [00:27:00] messed up. Oh, my goodness."
And then as my pregnancy went along, I was like, "Wait a minute, I feel great. Like, I feel better than I have felt in years." And so I went to my OB, and I was like, "I don't understand. I feel so much better than I have during this whole crazy time." And they had always thought it was, like, autoimmune related, but they couldn't pinpoint which autoimmune disease I had.
And he said, "Well, if it's autoimmune, sometimes pregnancy will put it in remission. Sometimes it makes it worse, but it looks like for you, it put you in remission." And I was like, "Do you think it will stay in remission?" And he was like, "I don't know. Maybe." And I was like, "Oh, my goodness." And so I thought, "Thank you, Jesus.
If I stay in remission, I can get a job and support my child and not feel like this person that's not being able to be a responsible mom." And so I got a job at Park Center on the homeless outreach team, and I started six weeks after my son was born. And I just loved that work. It was amazing. I got to, I got to do what I was doing with the [00:28:00] outreach organization that I had started previously called Operation Not Forsaken, but I got paid, and I had insurance, and it was just fantastic.
I was meeting people in their encampments Getting them the supplies that they needed, getting them the documents they needed for housing, and then getting them into housing. So I got to see this whole transformation from tent to apartment and everything in between. And it was the hardest work, but the most beautiful work, and it was just amazing.
Oftentimes, people that are experiencing homelessness, they're the unseen population. You see them at a stoplight flying a sign or trying to sell their Contributor paper, but they're not seen. They're just driven by. And so to be able to have that opportunity to build a connection with someone that had felt unseen, 'cause most of the people we worked with were chronically homeless, so they...
This wasn't, like, a blip. This was years of living on the streets. And so it's just, it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to, to do that work and get paid for it, and then [00:29:00] provide for my child, and I was so grateful. Um, that grant ran out, and Park Center wanted to keep me, but they wanted to put me on a desk job, and I was like, "Uh, uh, uh, that's not me."
And so Safe Haven Family Shelter was house- or hiring for housing, and so I went over there and became the housing director. And oddly enough, my boss there, Colin Mayer, he was the COO at Safe Haven. He came here to be the CEO, and during the whole time as he was supervising me as the housing director, he's like, "Brittany, you should consider fundraising."
And I was like, "No, no, no, no. I'm a client-centered person. Like, it's me and the clients. Like, no, no, no, no, no." And then after, like, five and a half years, kinda what you were talking about, the burnout was sorta setting in of direct service for so long, and just kinda being the fire extinguisher of the agency because I was managing all the landlord partnerships, all the hotel partnerships.
So when anything went wrong with a client, I would get the call, even if it was, like, 2:00 in the morning. And so I was like, "You know, maybe. Maybe I will fundraise." And I was like, "Let me just... Let me go [00:30:00] volunteer, and let me see how I like the mission and if it, like, sparks joy in my heart." And so I went and did a volunteer shift at the Belmont location.
And at that time they were doing a senior shopping hour, 'cause it was, like, 2023, so it was still kinda close to COVID and they wanted to protect the aging adults. And I just fell in love with it. The thing that I loved the most, though, I mean, of course it was amazing getting the seniors to shop and get them the groceries that they needed.
Most of them are on a fixed income. But after they got done shopping, while they were waiting for their bus, it was community time. They were catching up with their friends, and you could tell, like, they looked forward to this day every other week, and it was their favorite day every two weeks. And so I quickly called Colin as soon as I got in the car after, and I was like, "Sign me up."
Like, "Yes, I will apply for this job. I don't know anything about fundraising, but I'll give it my best shot." And God has just been- Wow ... He's just blessed it profoundly. Yeah.
Carli Patton: Doing this podcasting for three years now, it [00:31:00] has affirmed my belief that the Lord wastes nothing-
Brittney Brown: Nothing ...
Carli Patton: in everyone's story.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Carli Patton: And your story is so powerful, and it hits on so many issues that I, keep me awake at night. Yeah As a, as a mother of three girls and a parent in general is women's health, the what ifs- Yeah ... the safety net that not everyone is privileged enough to have, right? Yeah. The unexpected pregnancy and finding out you're a mom, and that there's just this beautiful life that is meant to exist that you- Yeah
did not plan for, that actually saved your life.
Brittney Brown: It saved my life, and it also taught me the power of God's grace in such a profound way. Like, I had always heard about grace, but I experienced it because, you know, like, I wasn't married. I got pregnant out of wedlock, so that was my bad, and God used my, my disobedience to heal me, right?
And so I heard this amazing sermon one time, and the [00:32:00] pastor said, "Oftentimes your rock bottom moments or the worst moments in your life can become the most powerful moments in your testimony." And that is true for me, and I'm so grateful that God loved me enough to not leave me where I was because, you guys, I could have been a successful suicide number, you know?
And I'm so grateful that I wasn't successful because now I have this amazing life, and I get to be a part of this amazing... Like, look at this. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful mission, and I have a beautiful boy who'll be 10 on Halloween, and I'm just, I'm so grateful to God that- That yeah, that he turned my dark moments into beauty.
Really beauty for ashes. It's, I'm so grateful.
Carli Patton: I'm so grateful you're willing to share. Yeah. Because I think even people that experience grace and just outrageous amounts of grace still struggle to share it.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Carli Patton: And something that we're really passionate about, the whole reason that I said yes to do this is because [00:33:00] I think sharing those moments of grace empower other people-
Brittney Brown: Yeah
Carli Patton: in their dark moments. Yeah. And you have no idea where your story's gonna go. And touch them, and now you're feeding thousands of people, you're helping connect the resources with the mission- Yeah ... which is no easy task, and you're raising a cutie pie.
Brittney Brown: It's such a cutie pie. Look at you. Yeah. I'm really, really grateful.
I really am. And honestly, that's why I'm never afraid to share my story, is because I know what those dark moments feel like, and they can feel like everything, and you can't see any light past the dark moment. And so I always wanna be a reminder that there is a God out there that loves you and values you, and He has plans for you.
In Jeremiah 29:11, my most favorite verse, God has plans for you, and it's to lift you up and to give you a hope and a future. And if you can find a glimmer of hope when you're stuck in a dark moment, you can get through it. And with Jesus by your side, you can really get through it. And then [00:34:00] you can look back and be like, "Wow, look what You did.
Look what You did, God." And so I'm just, I'm just so grateful. Mm. Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Brittany, I have a really good pastor friend of mine that was telling a story saying that being a pastor, people bring stuff to you in total confidence, right? They had an affair, they have an addiction, they have something that they are mortified.
Mm-hmm. And they insist with the pastor, "No one can ever, ever, ever find out about this," right? Like, "I am telling you this, and no one else." Yeah. And then God does exactly like what you said, which is take some of the lowest, hardest, rock bottom moments, and it becomes the centerpiece of their story.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: And so my pastor friend told me, you know, you fast-forward two or three years later, and this person is invited to give their testimony, now that they're on the other side of it, and he said, "These guys stand [00:35:00] up on stage in front of 3,000 people and tell this secret that they made me hold in confidence- That now you're allowed to say.
Yeah. ... that I can't say. And now they're telling the whole room on stage. And that redemptive story is just so powerfully displayed in how God burdened your heart.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: And it's- It's been a really incredible thing for Carli and I as we go through life to try to ask the Lord, "What are you burdening our heart for?"
You know, who's-
Carli Patton: It's a super scary question though, by the way. It is.
Brittney Brown: Yeah. 'Cause you don't know what He might say. Well- And then you're like, "Whoa, whoa. I didn't mean that. No.
Carli Patton: Hold on" We are, we are really on the record personally as saying when we start praying, "Lord, break our heart for what breaks yours," it was painful, 'cause a broken heart is scary, but it's led to everything that we do now.
Yeah. But it's- Mm-hmm ... it's pretty scary.
Spencer Patton: Yeah. My same pastor friend is like, "Nothing [00:36:00] messes up a church as when Jesus starts saving the wrong people." You know? Like, when the wrong people, it's like, wait a second, that's not what I expected to have my heart burdened for, and this is really different. Like- Yeah
it, it just is incredible to hear your story, and your passion that you show now, understanding that root is, is part of understanding the mission, and is part of understanding how you get out of bed every day- Yeah ... and come to a place where you could be, and still can be fatigued, right? It's not like every day is just easy and it is what it is, but it, it's, it's where that source comes, uh, for you.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Okay. Um, well, me still being the economist, the math guy, the numbers guy, you gotta forgive me, because I still have to get a couple more answers out of you- Yeah ... so I can know how this place works, right? Oh,
Carli Patton: right. Okay. So- A logistics question. I can't believe you waited this long. I thought, like, once you saw a stocked [00:37:00] shelf, you'd be like, "Where did it come from?
How much are we spending- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... and how do we do this?" Yeah. It's
Brittney Brown: all great questions. Yeah. I get asked all the time, yeah. I,
Spencer Patton: I, I can't help it.
Carli Patton: He was so patient. Look at him. Well
Brittney Brown: done. Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Yeah, yeah. I, I, I can't help it, so I just still have to... But I think my, um, explanation to you would say that in your fundraising effort, like, these are questions that you probably get all the time, or it may be people that wanna ask the questions, but just can't quite, you know, get there.
Carli Patton: Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Um, so maybe just talk through how there's stuff on the shelves here, okay? Yeah. So, um, I think I heard you talk earlier that you all are spending money on food, which means that you're having to buy this food, which already if you would've asked me, I would've said everything here was donated, right?
I just-
Brittney Brown: Wouldn't that be nice?
Spencer Patton: Yeah. So- That
Brittney Brown: would make my job a lot easier if it were.
Spencer Patton: Yeah. Yeah. So, so how is there stuff on the shelves behind us?
Brittney Brown: Yeah. So because we're a grocery store model, we are buying 90% of our food, so it's a much more expensive model than if we were out there doing hodgepodge food drives, which are [00:38:00] great, but if we were just solely doing food drives, we wouldn't have the same item on our shelves week after week.
So it would minimize that dignity piece, 'cause our shoppers wouldn't know what to expect when they come and shop. So again, we're buying 90% of our food. This year alone, our food budget is almost at 4 million. It's 3.998, so might as well be 4 million. Almost half of that is food So we buy our food, um, from Second Harvest.
We buy from FreshPoint. They give us a lot of our produce. We buy from Gordon Food Services. We love them. We actually put our business out to bid, and they came in number one. They're saving us $100,000 a year. They're incredible partners. Um, we get a lot of our meats and produce also from, like, just local farmers, local butchers.
We have an amazing partnership with this organization called Hatch, where they're going out and they're rescuing cuts of meat that maybe Walmart didn't want on their shelves, or Kroger, or whomever, and it's perfectly good meat, and they can get it to us at just a phenomenal discount. And so [00:39:00] my job as the fundraiser this year, I've had two main goals.
One, find vendors that can get us even not free food, but just better-priced food. Um, free food is obviously our, our preference. But, um, so get our costs down, and then also just find more major donors that can make more transformative, impactful gifts to help us make this mission work. I mean, we are amazing at stretching our dollars.
We can make $1,000. That provides groceries to one family for an entire year at the store. So we even have this cool opportunity where you can sponsor a family's groceries by either sending in a one-time $1,000 gift, so that's one family off our waiting list. They're invited into our program, and they're given those resources to shop with us.
Or a monthly gift, and you can choose the amount based on the size of the family. And so that is just a monthly ongoing gift that because of you, a family is getting to shop. You'll get paired with a family. You won't get their name and phone number because that's, that's not how we roll, but you will get information about [00:40:00] the family, the demographics, how many kids, what are their ages, what part of town do they live in?
Because we wanna give people that tangible connection to our mission. Their money and this mission, and tying that together makes people feel really good about the money that they're giving, 'cause they know, like, "Wow, that's powerful. Because of me, a family's gonna get groceries." I mean, who doesn't want that?
Spencer Patton: So I heard you say wait list. So you all will have a, a wait list. Is that part... I heard you mention earlier that you've gotta be at 200% of the poverty level,
Brittney Brown: right? 200% of the poverty level. There's two ways into our program. So one way is through our waiting list where you add yourself on our website.
Full disclosure, that waiting list just tripled during the SNAP crisis last year, and so it went from, like, 1,500 to over 3,000 in October. So what we had to do was just pause it till we could get this location open. We've worked our way down. I think we're back down to, like, 1,000, and we've kinda paused our wait list so we can get it down a little lower, 'cause we just don't [00:41:00] wanna give people false hope.
We don't want them to join our wait list and think this is gonna be a three-month thing, and they'll be shopping with us. So when we opened our doors here, we were greeting new customers. It was so exciting. They were so excited, like, "What? I get to shop with all this stuff?" And I'm like, "How long do- have you been waiting?"
And so many of them had been waiting a year, two years. And so we paused the wait list 'cause we didn't want people waiting that long. So that's one way into our program. The other way is through our nonprofit partners. So we are prioritizing those referrals from them because we know those partners are working with the families and the individuals on all these other things like workforce development, mental health, you know, if it's, um, recovery, just staying sober, you know.
So we prioritize those partnerships, um, over the wait list because we know they, they need it right away. And so those are the two ways into our program, but again, still just that 200% poverty level is the only requirement.
Spencer Patton: Sometimes the titling poverty level [00:42:00] brings to mind things that are really damaging stereotypes that- are just hurtful for my heart to hear.
Like, no matter what, someone is trying their best in the circumstance to provide for their family. And so can you just give a lens into some of the challenges and struggles that you see for the people that come through the doors here?
Brittney Brown: Yeah. So it's one thing that I love to mention, and it's why we're at 200% of the poverty level, which is a little higher than a lot of other food and security services, and that's because we're trying to reach those that are working and doing all they can to make ends meet.
There's this thing called the benefits cliff. So say that you make a certain level of money, and you start doing a really good job at your work, and your employer notices how great you are, and they're like, "I want to give them a raise." And so they get a raise. [00:43:00] And then they get another one. Or maybe they just get one, and that raise puts them $500 over that income limit for SNAP, for WIC, for TennCare, for all the things.
So then they lose all those services, so now they're essentially poorer for working harder. And so that's why our- we're at the 200% of the poverty level, 'cause we're wanting to reach those families that have lost those benefits but are still trying to make ends meet. I mean, we serve all. We serve people that still do have the food stamps.
We serve people that don't. But it really is a system that needs to be looked at, um, 'cause you shouldn't be- you shouldn't lose because you're working hard, and that's oftentimes what happens. In fact, United Way has named that family the Alice Family. They're the ones that lose the benefits, so they're essentially poorer for making a little more money.
Hmm.
Spencer Patton: And 'cause that's the stigma, right? Like, the stigma is, you know, if they worked harder, if this happened, then they could change the trajectory. Mm-hmm. But I think what's- what's so incredibly [00:44:00] important, it's- it's, you know, commonly understood in tax brackets as well. Mm-hmm. Like, you move that extra amount, and all of a sudden your tax bracket goes from, you know, 25% to 33%, and so your net take-home pay is meaningfully less.
Yeah. And- and here we're talking about the ability to provide for your family is that you're working hourly. You get a dollar per hour raise, and all of a sudden, all the things that you qualified for prior- Mm-hmm ... you don't qualify anymore.
Brittney Brown: Yeah, and now you're gonna pay for those things out of pocket.
Spencer Patton: Yeah.
Brittney Brown: So you are bringing home less money now.
Spencer Patton: Yeah. So- As is typical with nonprofits, you know, you are our director of mission advancement, so I heard fundraising as part of this, but truly, you wear a lot of hats. I heard that- Yeah ... you're also, like, negotiating the supply chain for the
Brittney Brown: store. Along with our ops team.
Yeah. Along with our ops team. But I try to go out there... I'm out there just trying to find people that wanna support us and of- Yeah ... in any way that they want. I'm trying [00:45:00] to get us resources, whether that be money, whether that be food, whether that be non-food items. We even have a non-food item shelf where we're providing hygiene items and toilet paper and paper towels- Yeah
and diapers. And so I am out there trying to find any way that is just as good as money through the door. Mm-hmm. And if we can get free product on our shelves or better pricing, that is just as good as money in our bank.
Spencer Patton: It's kind of that nonprofit done right, which is entrepreneurial scrappiness- Yeah
because nonprofits can be done wrong, too, right? There's no business sense. There's a slower pace. But I really appreciate the kinda culture that I, I pick up from you on that. Yeah. So I wanna give you the opportunity, we don't do this for everybody, to talk about the fundraiser that you have coming up- Yeah
because it does take, now that I have been educated, like, this food you have to buy. Yeah. And it sounds like while you're doing your best you can, you know, there's quality stuff. Like, Carli and I walked through the aisles here, and this is the exact same stuff that you [00:46:00] would see in grocery stores. Yeah. So, uh, talk through the fundraiser for those that are feeling their heart burdensome for what you're doing here.
How can they get involved?
Brittney Brown: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have an amazing fundraiser. It's October the 22nd at City Winery. It's called Nashville's Got Talent. We don't do boring fundraisers at the store. All our fundraisers are fun. And so the premise of this event is we find corporate people in Nashville that also happen to have this amazing talent and are brave enough to get up the night of and perform said talent.
So last year we had a huge variety. We had a hematologist physician that did jazz on the piano. He actually won fan favorite 'cause everyone in the audience can vote for their favorite. We also get three celebrity judges that commentate after each performance. Um, we had a hula hooper. We had a wealth management guy who did comedy.
We had an opera singer. We had a physician band. We actually had two physician bands. Yeah, it's such a fun night. It's just a great way to come out and support our mission. There's a mission moment in the middle where one of our customers can get up [00:47:00] and talk about their experience of what it's like to be a customer at the store, and so it'll pull on your heartstrings, it'll educate you a little more about our mission, and it'll just give you a great night out.
Date night, girls' night, whatever, but it's, it's fantastic, and it's a fun way to support our mission.
Spencer Patton: And you mentioned the Paisleys as big supporters, but there's been some other high-profile supporters that have come recently. Just one or two.
Carli Patton: Who's that?
Spencer Patton: I saw that come
Carli Patton: through- Yeah ... all over Instagram, and I was like, "Let's go."
Spencer Patton: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Will you identify who that is
Brittney Brown: for those that don't know? Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce gave us a wedding gift. And so we, you guys, again, God, God always provides. So the timing was impeccable. We had just a few weeks prior, we were kind of sitting down and planning our budget for next year, and we knew that we were gonna have to pull a little bit from reserves for this coming year just because we're now fully operational, two locations.
And we actually fundraised for that when we did the capital campaign for Centennial. We built in operational costs. So we already knew [00:48:00] that next year was gonna be a little short. We were gonna pull from our endowment. But we did say we were gonna have to pause on accepting new families into our program because we wanted to make sure that we were being fiscally responsible.
And so that's just kind of the decision that we had made, and it was like, ugh. As the fundraiser, I got off that call and I was like, "Well, God, what you gonna do?" And Colin called me after the finance committee call, and he's like, "How you doing?" I was like, "I'm a little stressed." I was like, "But I can't explain it.
I know God's gonna provide, and I'm not sure how." And then fast-forward three weeks later, we get a call from Taylor Swift's publicist about a gift that she was sending us. And I'm not allowed to say how much it was, but it was transformational and very impactful, so much so that we didn't have to start pausing taking new families.
And so Yeah.
Carli Patton: That gives me chill bumps. Like, I imagine you would have had every emotion. It'd be faith-affirming.
Brittney Brown: Yes.
Carli Patton: I think I would have cried ugly tears that- Oh, yeah ... day. Like-
Brittney Brown: Yeah ...
Carli Patton: [00:49:00] what was that day like for you?
Brittney Brown: I was actually off that day, and, um, Tree, Taylor's publicist, her and I had spoken before because Taylor gave us a gift back in December to support the, um, the build-out of Centennial.
And so she had my number, and I guess she had gotten my auto-reply when she sent the email, and she texted me. And you know, you look down and see Taylor Swift's name, Taylor Swift's publicist name on your phone, you're like, "Wonder what that's about" Doesn't happen
Carli Patton: every day. Doesn't happen every day. Yeah.
Spencer Patton: Auto-reply
Brittney Brown: goes out. Yeah. I was at home doing my God time, honestly. And so I was like, "Wait, what?" She was like, "You've got a time-sensitive email in your inbox." And I was like, "Okay, let me s- let me check said time-sensitive email" So I get in there, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh" you know, and I lost it. I was, I was so excited.
And just like, I knew you were gonna provide, God, but I didn't know you were gonna do it like that. And that gift, not only was it transformational in the amount of money that it gave to our mission, but it got our mission out there to people all over the place. I mean, all over the world. We [00:50:00] even had people from Europe reaching out and sending in gifts and signing up to sponsor a family's groceries monthly.
So the ripple effect just outside of her transformational gift was monumental. It was amazing, you guys. And it brought in so many new people to support our mission, and that now know what we do, and they're like, "I didn't know anything about you." So it's just really exciting.
Carli Patton: What I love about your story personally, but also the store in general, is you have some really big names that love this place, from the Paisleys to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
You guys could really just be relying on- this star power, and instead you're relying on faith and grit.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Carli Patton: And I just think it's incredible that you have had both, and that you're not- Yeah ... resting. You're out there f- hustling every single day, and it's truly being blessed by the Lord-
Brittney Brown: Yeah ...
Carli Patton: what you're doing, and it's just, it's so fun to watch.
Brittney Brown: Well, the truth is we need both, right? Like, we can't just rely on these [00:51:00] every now and then again windfall gifts because, again, the mission is expensive. The model is expensive. I mean, Taylor's gift was amazing, and the support that Brad and Kim offer i- is also amazing. But it takes both. You know, our average gift in the last 12 months is, like, $125, and those are monthly givers that are helping to sustain our mission month after month.
And so it really does take both, and God utilizes both sizes of gifts, no matter how big or small, to bring huge impacts in our community, which I just love. And I think one thing I hope that our donors would say we're good at is just gratitude because we are so grateful for their support. When a gift comes in, no matter how big or small, I take it personal because this job is personal to me.
You know? It's not just a paycheck. It is everything, and so when someone chooses to give their hard-earned money to our mission, that matters 'cause there's a million other places they could send their money to, so the fact that they would choose us, it's just everything.
Carli Patton: Well, I'll just [00:52:00] say this. The Lord has a history of multiplying food resources- It's
Brittney Brown: true.
Carli Patton: Yeah ... and telling you to not mess with widows and orphans and the vulnerable.
Brittney Brown: Yeah.
Carli Patton: And you are covering, even though this is not for profit, it is not a faith-based per se- Yeah ... organization, you are covering the heart of the Lord in what you are doing day in, day out, and it does not surprise me for an instant- That He blesses it
that your needs have been met-
Brittney Brown: Yeah ...
Carli Patton: time and time again, personally with your affiliation-
Brittney Brown: Yeah ...
Carli Patton: and overall in the organization. It's very cool to see.
Brittney Brown: It's incredible, and like you said, no, we're not a religious-based organization, but I see the hands and feet of Jesus every day that I'm here, and I just love it so much.
Spencer Patton: Mm. Brittany, we land each podcast with a series of fill-in-the-blank questions.
Brittney Brown: Oh, fun.
Spencer Patton: Okay. So I read a short sentence with a blank at the end, and you just fill it in with a word or a short phrase that you think completes the thought, [00:53:00] okay? Okay. So, uh, only instruction is if you'll just repeat the short prompt to me, and then fill it in with whatever you think, okay?
Okay. All right? All
Brittney Brown: right.
Spencer Patton: All right. You're gonna do great. I hope I do good. Don't worry. You're gonna be
Carli Patton: great. Okay. I know, right?
Spencer Patton: Number one. No pressure The biggest misconception people have about food insecurity is blank.
Brittney Brown: The biggest misconception that people have about food insecurity is that if they're hungry, they'll eat anything.
And that is true. But as a person who has lots of dietary restrictions, I can't just eat... I, I can, I can eat anything you give me, but it's gonna make me very sick. And so being able to feed people in this way where they're choosing, it's everything. Dignity matters, y'all. It really does. Choice matters, and it has a ripple effect in their lives and all the other areas, too.
Spencer Patton: Mm-hmm. Number two, when someone walks into the store, we want them to feel blank.
Brittney Brown: When someone [00:54:00] walks in the store, we want them to s- feel seen, valued, and cared for. And I think we do. I think we do a good job of that.
Spencer Patton: Number three, the store is more than food. It's about blank.
Brittney Brown: Oh, the store is so much more than food.
It's about love. It's about community. It's about reminding people that they matter. It's about giving people this beautiful opportunity to be a part of something and leave with not just a cart full of groceries but a heart that's been filled up, too.
Spencer Patton: Mm. Mm. Last two, okay? You're doing great.
Brittney Brown: Thanks. Drum roll.
Spencer Patton: Number four, the biggest thing working with people experiencing homelessness has taught me is blank.
Brittney Brown: The biggest thing working with people experiencing homelessness has taught me that every single person has a story, and it's not fair to look at them and judge them. S- Roll your window down, wave, say hi, keep snacks in your car, hand out a bottle of water, ask them how their [00:55:00] day is.
Sometimes that is everything. They matter, too, even if they don't look like you or me or you might be making judgments of what they're doing if you give them $2. Just do it. If God's calling you to do it, just do it. He'll handle, He'll handle the rest.
Spencer Patton: And the last one, generosity becomes transformational when blank.
Brittney Brown: Oh. Generosity becomes transformational when, when you just are obedient with what God is calling you to do in your generosity. I mean, no matter, again, no matter how small or big it is, God will, God will multiply it, just like you said, right? And it really does have an impact. And you guys, we have some amazing people in Middle Tennessee with great big hearts, and if you're feeling called to support our mission, call me, 'cause I would love to direct your generosity to our mission
Spencer Patton: Brittany, Carli and I get to do a number of different podcasts, and the [00:56:00] stories are all amazing in their own way.
And to spend time with you, very early on we could tell that your energy is infectious, and you're a great leader that God has prepared you to be in this place at this time and with the heart posture that you have. The other remarkable thing is the innovation that's here. Seeing food banks attack the problem of food insecurity is something that I've never been able to ask the strategic choices that are made about how you go to addressing this problem.
And so seeing the innovation and the creativity here that is around choice and dignity related to that choice is also something that I'm just so thankful that you've been able to teach us in a way that makes it so [00:57:00] accessible. Yeah. And that's also a hallmark of what we see people that are most successful at what they do, is that they have the ability to teach it, and teach it on the fly, and teach it to people that don't have a background- Yeah
in addressing the problems that you know better than a lot of people. So thank you for serving the people so well- Yeah ... that you do here, serving us well, and we're really excited to give your ministry a little extra megaphone- Yes ... to say-
Brittney Brown: Thank you so much for that ...
Spencer Patton: Carli and Spencer, uh, can affirm that there's really good things happening here, and we're sitting in this room to prove it.
Brittney Brown: Wow. Thank you guys so much for coming. It really does mean the world to us.
