Wounded Healers Ministries

Wounded Healers Ministries is a non-profit organization located in and serving the people of Bradley County, Tennessee since 2016. We provide essential support to the marginalized within our community who are suffering with a lack of access to the basic necessities of life. We work to ease the burden of those struggling with food insecurity, houselessness, and addiction by providing food, shelter, and connections to other local service providers with a shared passion to see our fellow brothers and sisters in crisis move towards flourishing within a safe community of acceptance.

Wounded Healers was born from a collaborative ministry effort focused on providing hope, encouragement, and warm meals to the least fortunate of our community. Over a three-day event in the Spring of 2016, we served over 500 hot meals to at least 150 people. More importantly, we forged a friendship with members of our growing community in Cleveland who were experiencing despair as a result of their various struggles and lack of access to basic necessities.

After much discussion and full of excitement another Restoration Conference was scheduled for the Fall of 2016. More people from our community came out. Over 200 people attended that event and we served 800+ meals over the three-day conference.

On the last day of the conference, our Founder, Jeannie Hart, was so moved by those she had met, she invited a few, who were experiencing a lack of food security, to her business for dinner and a Bible study. Armed with a pizza and four cokes on a Monday evening, the group gathered and shared together. Jeannie recognized that the need for fellowship and food was too great to wait a full week to re-gather. She invited them to come back 3 days later, on Thursday evening of the same week. A dozen people showed up to share in the food and receive an encouraging message of hope. In the whirlwind of compassion and shared joy, Wounded Healers Ministries had been born. To this day, hot meals are packed up and sent home with those that gather with us on Sunday and Thursday nights every week!

Our purpose is to come alongside families and individuals struggling in our county. We have borne witness to the suffering that comes as a consequence to the lack of access to at least, but not limited to, 3 primary things: food, shelter, and medical care. We will not stand idly by as our neighbors suffer. Wounded Healers Ministries is more than the limitation of our own capacities and resources. In collaboration with small businesses, corporations, and churches, we continue to extend the hand of mercy to those who need it most.

Providing food for those who are hungry, is at the center of what we do. We believe that everyone deserves access to food and that there is more than enough in our County to end food insecurity here. Since our humble beginnings in 2016, Wounded Healers Ministries has served over 1,000,000 meals. During the Pandemic Wounded Healers Ministries was a key partner with the Feed America program receiving and distributing weekly semis full of 1800 boxes of food. Each box contained 14 meals per box, enough to feed a family of two for a week. Totaling 25.200 meals received and distributed all in the same day on a weekly basis. Occasionally, we would receive two semis doubling the distribution to 50,400 meals per week. Last year alone, we provided 48,732 meals to 1,765 households including 1,818 children and 2,974 adults.

We established a local food bank in the fall of 2019. As other places of service closed due to regulations, we delivered groceries and hot meals directly to those in our reach, allowing them to shelter in place as necessary. We know that those at and below the poverty line suffered disproportionately during that season. Our services continued throughout the pandemic, twice each week. The Chattanooga Food Bank and other local businesses became our strategic partners as well. Those relationships allowed us to purchase nutritious items such as bread, meat, and vegetables at a greatly reduced price to include in each food box provided to our community members.

We worked with the Feed America program receiving and distributing 1800 boxes of food, often the same day as it arrived by semi-truck. Occasionally, we would receive double the distribution. As a result, we were able to extend beyond our local community by distributing the boxes into Benton and Dunlap Tennessee as well as to aid flood victims in West Virginia.

In 2021, we created a No Shame extension of our food bank to acknowledge and protect the dignity of our neighbors in need. Our food pantry shelves are stocked, readily available with Volunteers available 24 hrs per day to open the pantry, so that families in crisis can receive assistance without any cost and without question. Community members are invited to come. We especially invite those who have children to come through together by offering short term childcare and special treats for their younger ones as their parent(s) or guardian(s) shop.

Houselessness is at an all-time high and the stress that comes with deciding which necessity may or may not be accessible or feasible is a tragic reality for many of the people we serve. Our friends and neighbors should not be forced to choose between food, shelter, medicine, or utilities. Those are basic human needs. We provide in many different ways attempting to alleviate that burden which carries with it despair. Wounded Healers Ministries has provided over 252 nights at local hotels as temporary or transitional housing for some in crisis. Often we have connected individuals and families with local shelters and other service providers. We have met the financial needs of some in our community who were facing a loss of access to their utilities, power, and or water, helping them to maintain a stable residence. Regularly, medicine, clothes, and personal hygiene items are distributed on a regular basis and according to our capacity.

Wounded Healers Ministries purchased a van a15-passenger van that run several routes each week through our most vulnerable neighborhoods - including the local Cleveland Homeless Shelter located on Wildwood. Our Share a Ride program allows not only Volunteers who participate in transportation pick ups and drop off but those who are hungry who have vehicles share and provide transportation to their neighbors to our main facilities for hot meals each Sunday and Thursday evening. Our vans are also used to offer transportation to events centered on community building and workshops on skill acquisition.

Wounded Healers Ministries is not only dedicated to providing support and food to the less-than-fortunate in our community, but also to those individuals who are struggling through the pain of addiction. We coordinate and work to move them from our streets and into life changing treatment centers for rehabilitation.

Communal Joy is one of our primary core values. In all that we do to alleviate burdens and provide necessities to the most marginalized among us, we want to move our neighbors to flourishing through shared joy. We attempt to cultivate it through community celebration. We open our doors for food and fellowship on the most special of days: Easter, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve. We come together, feasting. One of the highlights from last year was conducting our first Toy Drive. We provided toys for 163 families and their children. Not one person went without!

Wounded Healers could not do everything that we do without the collaboration and generosity of our partners. The direct financial contributions to our ministry has increased year over year: $156,884.00 in 2021, $218,643.00 in 2022, and $232,574.29 in 2023. We exist as a bridge to the for-profit sector to address the needs of our local community as well. In a time of corporate greed and a growing wealth gap delete, we strive to bring other local businesses, churches, and corporate partners into the work of renewal in Bradley County. Some of our most significant partners include: Martin LeCea and The Rebel Drive In, Scotty Gilbert and Town House Bake Shop, Aldi, Food CIty and Bimbo Bakeries. Each one has contributed a significant amount of food and or meals that our organization has been able to serve to those suffering in Bradley County. We are proud to share in this work with each one!

Our desire is to continue to root ourselves within Bradley County, establishing ourselves as a non-profit leader and a resilient force for good in our community. Our Entire Volunteer Staff consisting of no paid positions are second to none. We are striving to expand our reach by continuing to forge partnerships with other local organizations and recruiting passionate volunteers to join our work. Our heart is to exponentially grow the number of people we assist until we end food insecurity, homelessness, and addiction in our community.

One of our immediate goals is to have a permanent and expanded physical location to serve our neighbors. Our vision of being a community of mercy, gathered and scattered from and into every part of the County is essential to how we aim to serve those below the poverty line or struggling with addiction. From there, one of our first initiatives is to establish an Alcohol and Drug Rehab Center and developing a mobile food pantry in order to reach those in remote parts of Bradley County that have limited access to transportation.