COVER PHOTO: Well Outreach board chair Jack Maher and his family share a smile at last year's Whole Hog Festival.
Volume 1 | Number 2 - Autumn, 2025
Oh the lives we encountered and the gifts we received! The Well Outreach had a summer filled with both blessings and challenges. We invite you into the stories and accounts of our ministry this past quarter, which we hope you find inspiring.
Thank you for living into the life of The Well Outreach!
This past quarter The Well Outreach was blessed to continue our ministry with the support of so many within our community. Here is a look back at the gifts we shared and those we were given.
Run FOr Hunger
On July 4, The Well Outreach hosted its fifth annual Run For Hunger fundraiser. Since its inception, this event has grown year after year, and the 2025 event saw 630 participants join us at Summit High School for a timed 5K, a color foam run and a bicycle parade.
The Well Outreach is grateful to all of our sponsors for this important summer fundraiser and to the participants who themselves fundraised over $5000 for the event.
In total, the event raised $37,000 for The Well Outreach and was a key contributor to our funding through the summer.
The Pantry of Plenty
Addressing Our Community's Growing Needs
The Well Outreach is grateful for the opportunity to now provide nourishment to over 2100 families each month, a number that has grown by 15% each month over the past year. Our pantries play a vital role in our community, yet we face significant challenges when our shelves are low, and grocery carts remain unfilled.
Our frozen meat/protein section has reached its lowest level since the onset of COVID-19. Essential grocery items, including dairy, cold products and produce, have also been severely depleted. Recent USDA cuts have further impacted our resources:
- Frozen food has been reduced by 75%
- Dairy products have been eliminated
- Fruits and dry goods have been reduced by 50%
Despite these challenges, we remain committed to our mission. We cultivate community relationships, rescue food, and establish partnerships to meet the rising demand. I have witnessed incredible generosity from local farmers and food drives, which have provided fresh produce and essential items like cereal and peanut butter.
We want our guests to experience a grocery store-like environment in our pantries, offering dignity, choice, hope, and love. And so in fullest service of them, we will never stop seeking ways to offer a broad range of healthy food to them.
Even when it’s difficult to keep our shelves stocked, we want our guests to know us as a place of plenty.
Barefoot Shopping
Over time as we’ve done this work, we’ve learned that every day God sends us exactly what is needed. No more, no less. We live in the faith that when we open our doors, the work of our hands will be blessed and extended far beyond what is humanly possible.
His providence in our work is seen daily, but perhaps no story of late highlights that truth more than the day we met our Barefoot Shopper...
A few days ago, on a sunny Monday morning in Mount Pleasant, as our families waited in our cafe to shop, enjoying a cup of coffee and a snack, a somewhat unique guest walked in and caught everyone’s eye.
Even without hearing her story, it was clear she had been through a hard season and likely hadn’t slept under a roof in some time. Her clothes were rumpled, her hair a bit unkempt, and she carried the weary look of someone at the end of their rope. Her downcast eyes told the rest of the story – a longing for more than food, but for love, community, and most of all hope.
But what struck us most were her shoes.
They were so large and worn they nearly slipped off her feet as she shuffled to the desk. Our team immediately began searching for a solution. Did we have any shoes that might fit her? One staff member even offered their own, but the size wasn’t right. We were at a loss.
And then, quietly, another guest walked over. She wore a wide smile, wrapped our unhoused guest in a hug, and without hesitation slipped off her own shoes - placing them on the feet of someone who needed them more.
She stood there barefoot, beaming with joy. And the shoes? A perfect fit.
Our unhoused guest continued through the pantry, walking with the bounce of someone trying on new shoes for the very first time - grateful, loved, and lifted by the kindness of her neighbor.
And our other guest shopped the pantry barefoot, yet she looked as happy as anyone who has walked through our doors. Proud, radiant, heart overflowing that she, too, was able to give, not just receive.
I can't stop thinking about that act of radical generosity. I keep remembering the look of joy on the face of our barefoot shopper. Her smile. Her confidence. That feeling of knowing she had been used by God to bless someone else.
And next time? I hope I get to give my shoes away. Because boy, that looked like fun.
Donor Testimonial
Bill Norris
Meet Bill Norris. For Bill, supporting The Well Outreach is more than a good deed, it’s a biblical calling. Rooted in the words of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Matthew 25, Bill believes that serving others is how we live out God’s heart for His people.
After moving to Spring Hill four years ago, Bill brought with him years of experience serving with Compassion International and the Rescue Mission. Today, he loves volunteering as a personal shopper at our Mount Pleasant pantry. There he sees firsthand that “Jesus comes disguised as the sick and needy.” He often reminds us that many guests are not only hungry for food, but also for someone who will listen and care for them.
Bill also gives financially because he sees it as a way to invest what God has entrusted to him into Kingdom work.
“Supporting The Well Outreach is more than giving out food - it’s giving hope,” he shares. And for anyone considering getting involved, his advice is simple: “Try it and see if it’s a good fit.”
Through both his time and resources, Bill reflects the truth that we all bring something different to the table. Together, we can feed hope as well as hunger.
The Our Chance Program
The Our Chance program is an initiative of the Tennessee Alliance For Economic Mobility, or TAEM as we call it. This pilot program partners eligible candidates with Family Center coaches who help families navigate what is called the benefits cliff, so they can financially thrive and become more self-sufficient. The benefits cliff describes what happens when eligible candidates reject job growth opportunities because their financial gain would not outweigh their benefits loss. For example, if someone receives more work hours or even $1.00 an hour more, this could cause them to lose any number of government benefits including healthcare, housing or a decrease in SNAP.
Eligible participants are called caregivers, and they represent many different types of households. Some are married; some are single. They are parents, grandparents, relatives and adoptive parents. Each caregiver comes into the program at different starting points. The main goal of Our Chance is for caregivers to establish goals that will move them forward in their education or employment status, with additional goals being wellness, mental health, and financial security.
Our family coaches utilize our referral partners within the program to connect caregivers to education and employment specialists, county resource navigators, financial counselors and other outside partners that will help move caregivers forward toward achieving whatever goals they've chosen.
The Well Outreach was chosen to participate in the Our Chance program as part of a four-year grant, and we are moving to the end of our third year with many successes. We have one caregiver, a 34-year-old single mother of three, who came into the program without a high school diploma. Within an eight-month period she received her GED, enrolled in a program and earned her CNA license, and bridged that into an LVN nursing program that she started in May. Another caregiver, also a single mother, started out as a technician in an auto shop and has now worked her way up to a management position which presents her with better opportunities for the future.
As family coaches, we are blessed to be able to support, guide, connect and cheerlead for these people seeking new possibilities and security in their lives.
Peanut Butter and Jelly Jam Campaign
Through the course of July and August, The Well Outreach launched a new type of campaign that asked our community to help us with two staple food items in our pantries - peanut butter and jelly!
Our goal was to collect 6000 jars of each of these important pantry items, and our local communities responded with great generosity. By the end of August we had met that goal and our pantry shelves were fully stocked for the autumn with jars of peanut butter and jelly.
Special thanks go to Food Lion on Main Street in Spring Hill, who truly embraced this new campaign concept and posted signs in their store to promote contributions!
Jetpack Program
The Jetpack Program is one of our four core pillars and as the new academic year gets underway, we anticipate once again serving 1400 students each week from 30 local schools.
Each Friday during the school year, students enrolled in the program receive a colorful drawstring bag that contains five meals to provide nutrition over the weekend. Students participating in the program commonly receive free or reduced-cost lunches during the school week, and the Jetpack program continues the food supplementing through the weekend for them.
While looking ahead to the next year of the program, The Well Outreach also paused to give thanks to Anne Marie Stern, who completed her work with us at the start of September. Anne Marie was the third full-time employee hired at The Well Outreach, and she oversaw the tremendous growth of the Jetpack Program since March 2021.
Taking the baton from Anne Marie is our new Director of Jetpacks, Betsy Bushuiakovish, who brings a wealth of experience in community engagement. We are blessed to have her as part of our Well Outreach family!
Here is a look at some of our plans for this next quarter at The Well Outreach. Everything we do within our ministry is rooted in community, and we invite you to explore how you can join us!
Whole Hog Festival
Our autumn fundraiser event will return on Saturday, October 11th at beautiful Oak Lawn Mansion. This will mark the 20th year of this annual event, which has come to be the largest one-day event in Spring Hill!
Bring the whole family to enjoy:
- live music
- food trucks
- a craft fair
- a Kids Zone and
- our bacon-eating and hog-calling contests!
September Good Neighbor Campaign
There has never been a more important time to find in our hearts what it means to be a neighbor.
In August of last year, The Well Outreach served 1400 families. This past August, our pantries served 2100 families, even after having to limit them to one visit per month.
Guests and volunteers coming to our pantries are noticing bare spots on our shelves and in our freezers, because we simply can't keep up with the demand. In the past two weeks, both Channel 5 News and Way FM have come to visit us and more fully realize the increasing gap between the growing need and the diminishing supply.
In light of these ever-increasing challenges, The Well Outreach is dedicating this month to the growth of our Good Neighbor Program. We rely on this monthly-giving program to ensure we can continue to meet the needs of those experiencing food insecurity right here - in our neighborhoods, our churches, our schools.
Can you be a Good Neighbor? We will take care of multiplying your monthly gift so that it fills a grocery cart full of groceries for a family in need. Now more than ever we need your help with this important program.
Here is a collection of great photos and accounts of the churches, organizations and individuals who gave of themselves to help support our ministry this past quarter.
We are so grateful to be working with Ministry Partner, WayFM Radio as part of the “World’s BIGGEST Food Drive”. They are as wonderful in person as you think they are! Go Wally and Betty!
More than 30 Youth from The Church at West End in Columbia served in Mount Pleasant. They did a little of everything and loved people well. Love our partnership with this church.
Thank you to Walmart Supercenter - Spring Hill for donating 439 lbs of food to the Well Outreach. We are so grateful!!!
City Service Mission youth served all day in Spring Hill. This missions organization sends a group every year from churches around the country.
HCA Healthcare served in our Spring Hill pantry. Most were interns in the accounting department. They served in the pantry and worked on projects.
Publix store managers from the region served in Spring Hill. We love our partnership with Publix as they not only donate time serving in our pantry but provide food donations and event sponsorships as well.
Credits:
A quarterly newsletter of The Well Outreach