Statements
Mission
The Branch strives to build a community where everyone can thrive by nourishing, educating, and equipping our neighbors. We are dedicated to listening well to our neighbors' needs and walking with them on their journey to holistic well-being. We do this through comprehensive care, urgent food support, English language learning, and collective action with other community partners.
Background
After Southeast Nashville experienced the devastating flood of 2010, which inundated homes and schools, those who rebuilt the community recognized the need for a local food pantry. In April of 2013, The Branch of Nashville opened its doors and began to offer emergency food assistance to our community.
As we got to know our neighbors, we discovered that many didn't know English and were isolated and experiencing poverty because of the language barrier. To support these individuals and families, we started an English Language Learning (ELL) program in 2014.
Impact
Since our start as a Food Pantry in 2013, The Branch has provided food support for thousands of families, conducted English classes and assisted others to find work or other resources they need. We have built systems to help us assist 1200 families per month with food needs, distributing 1.9 million pounds of food to the community over a year. The flexibility of English Language Learning in every level with classes during the day, in the evening, and online provides more options to the community, educating over 250 students each year. We have employed clients of our programs, giving them opportunity to earn money and decrease their needs for assistance. Since August 2023, The Branch has provided transformative comprehensive care services for hundreds of people in Southeast Nashville by understanding the root causes of poverty and food insecurity, and customizing goals in those areas.
Southeast Nashville is a unique community rich in ethnic and cultural diversity. Many of its residents face disproportionately high rates of poverty and unemployment, and encounter more barriers to having a high quality of life than their neighbors in other parts of our city. The power of community and open-minded collaboration has proved an effective way to address issues of isolation and poverty in our community. By partnering with other organizations, donors, and volunteers, we build supportive networks for our neighbors.
In 2022, The Branch started the Coalition for Better Futures in Southeast Nashville. This group of caring citizens from non-profits, churches, schools and universities, businesses, local government, and the community has focused its collective action on the areas of greatest need for southeast Nashville families, including: basic needs, health and wellness, education and economic mobility, and transportation.
Needs
There are challenges in our current location as we fit a pantry and ELL classes into a gymnasium that also supports a youth program. We are open to creative solutions for our space needs.
Monthly, individual, and corporate funding will allow us to continue addressing immediate needs (food, English) while addressing upstream issues with transformative solutions so that people have a pathway to thriving.
The Branch provides comprehensive care through three support pathways: 1:1 Care Partner Coaches, Resource Navigation, and Love Your Neighbors Teams. Volunteers willing to receive training and committed to working directly with clients are needed, especially those who speak a language other than English.
CEO Statement
The Branch has a Christian-based foundation and brings many partners together from different avenues and walks to serve community together. We serve our guests with deep compassion, and we try to help them as they assimilate into our American culture. Self-sufficiency is their goal and we try to help them with resources or language or guidance to build those bridges. The largest work we do is to the international population (though not limited to this). We serve every single person who walks through our door with joy and love. We believe every person is created in the image of God and deserves the respect that comes because of this. We do not discriminate based on religion or race or any other perceived barrier. We are here for our community with open arms. We consider it a great privilege to welcome the immigrant, refugee, or American-born individual who is having a hard time. These encounters give us opportunity to assist and affect the futures of many of our community's children.
Board Chair Statement
The Branch started at a grass-roots level with people who were in the community seeing needs and wanting to meet them. Bringing many great ideas, minds, and perspectives together is a beautiful work of art and presents great challenges in walking together. Working with volunteers is unique, wonderful, and challenging. While multiplying our own heart and efforts, volunteers are not paid staff and cannot be treated as such. They enjoy and deserve appreciation and recognition. It takes intention and concentration to do this. Managing volunteers well is a skill gained and honed over time. Finding what they enjoy and thrive at doing, can take them and our organization to another level of success. This is hard work and worth doing. Working with financial challenges can be exhausting at times. The need to provide services and meet needs must be tempered with our ability to actually meet them. At times, the bottom line is the determining factor and we have to 'let go' of our inability to help someone or solve a problem. Deciding how to allocate funds and which screaming baby gets the milk, can be difficult. In the past, a lack of funding inspired the creativity of a food drive program. Creative thinking is critical and valuable to managing these situations. The family who came by one day and needed food and we just happened to be in their path - then ended up serving in the pantry on a weekly basis, is why we do what we do. The people who come in and look hopeless and leave smiling are why we do what we do. The laughter we generate in the crowd of people who have valid reasons to feel like hope is elusive-that laughter is good medicine and makes our job worthwhile. The people we serve have genuinely difficult and complicated situations. It is a pleasure to help them try to find their way. When they come back to tell us they found a job or speak to us in the English they have learned or invite us to their home, we know we are succeeding. Eliminating despair and hopelessness and invisibility and putting real action in place that can change lives and families is what drives us. Putting action to our faith is our mantra. Because, faith without works is dead. Managing the needs of people in need, volunteers helping, and limited finances are our challenges. The man who was an interpreter for the US Army and is making a safer, new life for his family of 6, is why we do this. The hope he feels because we are helping him pursue job leads, learn better English, and figure out how to become self-sufficient is the reason we are here. When he invites us to his home and considers that we are now his family, that is just a bonus. That is how we strengthen and build community.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Food, Agriculture & Nutrition - Food Banks, Food Pantries |
| Secondary Category: | Education - Adult Education |
| Tertiary Category: | Human Services - Ethnic/Immigrant Services |
Areas Served
The Branch mainly serves residents of Antioch and Southeast Nashville with food assistance, but no one with need is turned away. The Branch works with refugee organizations to provide culturally appropriate food for refugees and immigrants with emergent food needs in Davidson and Rutherford counties. ELL has in person, hybrid, and video classes available to anyone, including students in other states and countries.
| TN - Davidson |
| TN - Rutherford |
| TN - Williamson |
