Statements
Mission
The Community Resource Center's mission is to provide basic essential items to our most vulnerable neighbors, both during times of disaster and during seasons of ongoing need. The CRC is Middle Tennessee's only Hygiene Hub, working everyday to combat and end hygiene insecurity for our neighbors across six counties in Middle Tennessee. Through a network of nonprofit and school partners, the CRC provides consistent and free access to the products that our government assistance programs do not cover or provide. Those items include: diapers, wipes, shampoo, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, feminine hygiene, laundry detergent, paper products, and household cleaning items. The CRC believes that these basic needs items are essential to cleanliness, health and human dignity. Access to basic hygiene items is a human right and not just a privilege for those who can afford the cost of being clean.
The Community Resource Center serves as the official Materials Manager for Nashville's Office of Emergency Management and has activated multiple times over the last four years, including the March 2020 tornado, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Christmas Day bombing, the 2021 flooding in Nashville and in Waverly, and the December 2023 tornados.
Background
The Community Resource Center (CRC) began as the Wish List column in the Tennessean in March of 1985. The organization was incorporated under the name Community Wish List until 1987 when the name changed to the Community Resource Center. Since its inception, the Community Resource Center has been a supply chain to the front lines of poverty, ensuring that our neighbors in need have access to the items they need to thrive. At present, the Community Resource Center works to end hygiene insecurity in our community through the mass distribution of personal care products during seasons of ongoing need and in response to natural disaster.
Impact
In both 2020 and 2021, the Community Resource Center provided basic essentials to over one million people annually across Middle Tennessee. During this time, our community experienced an increased and unprecedented need as a result of multiple natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Never once during these challenges did the Community Resource Center close its doors.
In response to the ongoing natural disasters, the Community Resource Center provided over 25 million dollars in basic needs products to those who had lost everything as a result of tornados, flooding and the downtown bombing. Simultaneously, the CRC continued to provide hygiene and household cleaning products to those who faced financial and health challenges as a result of the pandemic. During these trying years, the Community Resource Center refined its service delivery model to efficiently and effectively meet the increased needs of our community and continues to sustain its services for those neighbors who are impacted by poverty, crisis and/or natural disaster.
Needs
1. Public awareness: Please help us spread the word about organization! We were founded in 1985 and are well-known in the nonprofit world, but the public at large is unaware of the work we do to end hygiene insecurity in our community. Please help us in advocating for the inclusion of hygiene and household products as fundamental basic needs and human rights for everyone in our community.
2. Financial Support: The Community Resource Center seeks support from individuals, organizations, corporations, grants and family foundations to ensure that our neighbors in need have access to life's most basic essentials.
3. In-Kind Donations: The Community Resource Center seeks support from individuals, organizations and corporations to collect and distribute new hygiene items and household essentials. The CRC provides over 100,000 products to our community every single month and is our community's only large-scale provider of these basic essentials.
4. Volunteers: The Community Resource Center would not exist without the hands and heart of our volunteers! We welcome individuals and groups who are interested in volunteering in our warehouse to support our neighbors in need.
CEO Statement
It is an honor to support the Middle Tennessee community as the only large-scale Hygiene Hub and community-wide Resource Center. We are continually amazed by the incredible working happening across Middle Tennessee to support our neighbors who face the daily barriers of poverty, crisis and disaster. It is our privilege to work in partnership with other nonprofits, faith communities and schools to ensure that those neighbors in need have access to the basic essentials they need to thrive. There is not another distribution center like ours in Tennessee and we are proud to be able to say that, over the years, millions of dollars of new items have been distributed to our neighbors in their time of need. We are proud to continue this work and grow our network of partners to ensure that no child, individual or family must ever go without their most basic needs.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Human Services - Emergency Assistance (Food, Clothing, Cash) |
| Secondary Category: | Public Safety, Disaster Preparedness and Relief - Disaster Preparedness and Relief Service |
| Tertiary Category: | Human Services - Homeless Services/Centers |
Areas Served
We are currently serving 6 counties in middle Tennessee, but are not restricted by any geographic boundaries.
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