Seeds of Hope receives donations from businesses

Citizens Bank tries to get involved with the community and the community’s needs. We are so busy with our own lives, we have no idea that it can happen in our little community until we are faced with it.”

Joann Gamble

 In the past week, Seeds of Hope of TN, a local outreach aimed at helping families achieve freedom from homelessness and addiction, has received three significant, and much needed, donations from the Sparta-White County community.

Employees at the Sparta Ben Lomand Connect LLC location pooled their funds together to donate $1,000 to Seeds of Hope.

“We try to come up with something to give back to the community to do our part,” Tammy Odom, one of the Ben Lomand employee.

Odom said the group had intended to find places to donate monthly, but, after the COVID-19 pandemic sent many of them home to work remotely, those plans had been sidelined.

“When we read the article in the paper [The Expositor], we kicked it into gear and were able to do something that we felt like would definitely help,” she said.

Odom said  the BLC employees plan to continue to give in 2021 and that they have been really touched by the stories of both struggles and successes that had been shared with them.

“When Tina (Lomax) was telling us that a lot of the people living in their cars do have jobs, they just can’t afford the things it takes to get into a home, it really spoke to us,” Odom said. “It’s just a small amount monthly that each of us contributes. Rather than blowing the money on things we don’t need, we have decided we want it to be put to work helping people.”

Citizens Bank also pointed to a recent article in The Expositor as leading them to stepping up and getting involved.

“Citizens Bank tries to get involved with the community and the community’s needs,” Joann Gamble said, and added that once the bank’s management read the article, they were shocked to see that there was such a need. “We are so busy with our own lives, we have no idea that it can happen in our little community until we are faced with it. This has been such an awkward year, but it has brought people to face some stark realities: there are needs in our community that we never saw or were confronted with before.”

Gamble said Citizens Bank hopes their donation of $2,500 will not only help Seeds of Hope of TN to meet some of the needs of those who are getting ready to face the winter without a home but also to inspire other businesses to step up and help as well.

“Our bank has been so blessed by this community, and we just want to be a blessing back to our community,” she said. “We feel committed to bless the way we have been blessed.”

Seeds of Hope of TN was also the recipient of a Little Pantry, built by Mike Simmons. According to Lomax, the pantry, which is located at the organization’s headquarters, at 234 King St., the pantry will be an avenue to provide foods that are easy to eat, provide protein, and do not require a stove to prepare or a refrigerator to keep fresh.

“You see, it takes lots of money to run a program like this, but, after the money is gone, this little pantry will still be up and running,” Lomax said.

Lomax said she showed Simmons a picture of what she was wanting, and he stepped up and built a full cedar little pantry.

“I’m so excited about this,” Lomax said. “It will be up and running in the next couple of days. God is so good.”