The late British actress Audrey Hepburn once said, “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands — one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
Greenville native Pandora Redmond has illustrated quite vividly what those profound words dictate in the work she is doing as founder of Hearty Helpings Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen, a subsidy of her nonprofit Visions MWTC.
On Friday, Hearty Helpings Food Pantry served hundreds of people at its community dinner in downtown Greenville, where some volunteered as cooks and servers in an effort to ensure those who came for a meal were served quickly and happily.
A registered nurse of 30 years who has seen from a health care provider’s perspective what it looks like to be helpless, Redmond used her experience as motivation and inspiration to help in a more unique way.
“The Lord blessed me to open my business and by doing that, we help to provide services to the elderly and disabled,” Redmond said.
Being in the business of providing personal care and respite services, Redmond said much of it involves having to go into clients’ homes and in doing so, one observes certain things, especially a great lack or need for something essential — food.
“We noticed a lot of them didn’t have food to eat and we would ask if they needed anything and food was always the last thing on their list because they felt like they could get by or could get a meal from somewhere,” Redmond said.
Highly aware of the many people who are faced with not knowing where their next meal would come from, Redmond took it up on herself to do what she could by donating food out of her own home.
However, Redmond said it began to be too much and then asked her staff if they would help to donate food.
Redmond and her staff proceeded with donating in that way for roughly a year or so until Redmond was given a divinely unique opportunity to start her own non-profit organization.
“The Lord blessed me, and I decided to form a non-profit called Visions and Hearty Helpings Food Pantry is one of the subsidies of the non-profit,” she said.
Visions is a community service non-profit which provides monthly groceries and daily hot meals to the poor, elderly, disabled, or underserved citizens in Washington, Bolivar and South Sunflower counties.
The nonprofit was started in 2008 and in 2009 came the inception of Hearty Helpings Food Pantry, a now 10 year undertaking by Redmond with the help of her staff.
In 2011, Redmond was able to open up the soup kitchen, “It’s just something that happened out of me seeing the need and the more I gave, the more the need was there,” she said.
Redmond described the success of opening up the food pantry and soup kitchen as a “domino effect,” highlighting how she met other people who shared with her the like spirit of giving.
“Through the giving, the pantry and soup kitchen came to fruition,” she added.
Redmond said when The Salvation Army closed, the food pantry’s numbers started to double and then some, gradually going from serving 1,000 people a month to over 3,000 a month.
Redmond shared when Looking Good caught fire in 2017, operations became significantly more difficult as the organization did not receive a lot of help from the community at the time and they were without a building to operate in.
“We just kept pushing,” Redmond said. “It’s not until The Salvation Army closed that people started looking at us like a real organization.”
In addition to serving the community with the food pantry and soup kitchen, Redmond’s non-profit also pays light bills for the elderly and disabled through its pilot care program.
Even now, Redmond said the biggest challenges they’re having are financial because they’re serving such a large volume of people and running out of food quite frequently.
She explained those challenges are partly due to the fact they have a small business and were needing to serve out of a barbershop because there was nowhere to operate after the Looking Good fire.
“We didn’t have anywhere to go so we set up shop in the back of a barbershop at 310 Washington (Avenue) and the space was limited, so it was a lot of work trying to serve as many people as we were serving with that type of space,” Redmond said.
Redmond has just recently moved operations to a warehouse and described it as “very convenient” with “a lot of space,” but it gets expensive.
With the pantry serving approximately 3,000 a month and the soup kitchen serving over 1,000, Redmond said they are seeking assistance and people with experience and expertise in acquiring grants for the type of service she provides.
Her business, Professional Staffing Solutions & Adult Day Care Services LLC, along with her organization’s thrift store, is primarily how Redmond-Wills is able to fund the operation of the food pantry and soup kitchen.
“By me having that business, we provide service to the elderly and disabled and we’re a part of the Mississippi Food Network,” she said.
Redmond also added Greenville Public Schools contributed a significant donation of canned goods as well as the city of Greenville and the Washington County Economic Alliance.
Lashawn Powers, who works for the food pantry and was on hand to serve at the community dinner Friday afternoon, said her favorite thing about what she does is the chance it gives her to lend a helping hand.
“I love to help people, I love to see their smiles and I love just to give,” she said cheerfully. “That’s the type of person I am and that’s why I love my job.”
Powers has been working at Hearty Helpings Food Pantry since 2015 and she doesn’t feel it’s just by chance she’s working there.
“I think I’ve been put here for a reason and that is to help others,” she said.
