You know, I roast hot dogs for homeless people. And he said, You look like you could use a pick me up. He said, Why don't you meet me down on Second Avenue there in Nashville, and I'm standing there so thin and so bony. He said, Can you cook? And I said, Yeah, I can cook. I was raised in Louisiana, and I can cook jambalaya for any size crowd. You just add more rice. And so he said, we've got some folks I want you to meet. So I cooked up a pot of jambalaya, and I met him under the bridge, and that's where my whole life began to change
who gave me a podcast? This is Jeff Allen, welcome to my podcast.
Welcome to Who gave Jeff Allen on a podcast, still looking for the person that gave me one 6 billion of you, we will find you and root you out. How dare you give me a podcast? Nordic wave, cold plunge. You can go to Nordic wave to do your research, do your homework. It's not for everybody, but if your doctor gives you permission to go through it, I could tell you it's life changing.
I do it every morning. And Jeff, 150 is the code, save yourself $150 so do your homework, do your research. Cold plunge. It's the wave of the future. Just like the Nordic you feel like a Nordic God. You maybe not. We have in our studio today one of my favorite and most inspiration. I'm telling you, I was looking forward to this for the longest time. She inspires me. She gives me hope and humanity, which which is saying something candy. Christmas is the founder of the bridge ministry in Nashville, and nonprofit dedicated to serving food insecure children, people experiencing homelessness, and family in crisis, families in crisis.
You began your career as a Christian recording artist. That's where I met you. It was on the Gaither cruise appearing in over 50 Gaither Homecoming videos, touring with Bill Gaither for six years, but in 2004 candy felt the called to shift her ministry from stage to the streets, cooking pots of jambalaya and serving the homeless under the Jefferson Street Bridge, which started from your Garage, has grown into an 18,000 square foot warehouse that feeds 1000s, supports local ministries and sends food filled backpacks home with school children every week. Candy's mission has always been the same to bring practical help and a message of hope to the least of these welcome candy Christmas.
Hello, thank you. Oh my gosh. Invitation.
Yeah, I hate reading intros. I really do. Because we were talking on fair about I was trying to remember the time we were I know we were flying to Cincinnati on a snowy December, and I had not seen you for the longest time. Bill fired me. If you're watching this bill, I know, but you fired me. So anyway, I hadn't seen you for a while, yeah, and you were just beaming on the airplane and just telling me the story of how you wound up doing what you're doing now. So go back to 2003 2002 three, and you were touring as a singer, yeah? Dream. That was your dream.
Yeah. I was living the dream and traveling with the gaithers and singing gospel music. And for me, I felt like I was at the apex of my career, you know, and really just just taken off and and I had, I suffered depression. And I'm a, I'm at least a third generational depression sufferer in my family, and, you know, honestly, I'd never been really depressed in my life, and I just I took a dive and I stopped eating, and I weighed under 100 pounds, and Bill and Gloria were very gracious to me.
Of course, my doctor sent him a letter and and they said, you know, do it? Do what you have to do to to get by. And so I stayed home with my children, which I feel like was a was a wonderful decision on my part, because family is very healing when, when things are good. And so I went on a journey though for my. My journey was a little different, I think, from from most people, I personally did not take medication for depression. I was clinically diagnosed. My doctor wanted to put me in a hospital and medicate me and and and I feel like that. And you and I have discussed this. I feel like that each person, each individual, has to do what, what they have to do to get through their rough time. And if that's medication, if that's hospitalization, if it's counseling, do do whatever you have to do to get through and I mentioned to you that even my own dad suffered from depression, and at one time, he was on seven different kinds of medication and had shock therapy, yeah, and so,
yeah, my dad did as well. He would go in his room and we wouldn't see him except for meals.
And so we're talking about real depression. We're not talking about a bad day or losing a job, or, yeah,
I've heard it described as this veil that just kind of comes over you, and it's just this dark, you know, my brother was diagnosed bipolar, and we would watch that. We would know when it would come, because there was discernible, yeah, a shift in his mood, in his you know, and back then, you know, parents were just get out of it. Yeah, get out of it's not that easy.
No, it isn't. It really isn't. At one time I was so depressed that I couldn't speak, and my husband learned sign language so that I could at least communicate with him, because, because it's like a mask. I've never heard anybody say that before. That's brilliant, that it is like a mask, and I couldn't speak, and, and, and it's like rational thoughts really can't, can't get through. And it's like, well, let's talk about this, and let's talk about what it is that's depressing you so you can snap out of it and move on and it and it's just not, it's not that easy. But for me, I felt like that. There was something inside of me, okay, you know, not to just be Uber, you know, thoughtful here, but pain sometimes is a good thing, absolutely, because
it's one of the only motivators for change in life.
That's right, if you don't have pain, say, say you can't feel in your feet, and you walk across the floor and you step on a nail and you don't feel pain, then that thing can get infected, and you could ultimately lose a limb because of that, because you don't feel pain. So when I began to feel pain, I went in, went on this journey to find out what was the source of my pain, and it took. It took a long time.
It took, a lot of years it took. I mean, if I can speak openly, two different times I put a loaded gun to my head and and thank God I didn't pull the trigger. You know, it's like I was totally convinced that my children would be better without me, that my husband would be better off without me. And so then I was raised in church. My whole life. My parents pastored when I was born in Louisiana, and I was raised in a pastor's home. So then you have this eternal question about, where will I spend eternity. There's an eternal question there. And so I was, I was very fearful of the answer to that question. Okay, so then I realized, well, I'm not going to take my life after many suicide letters and all those things that I wrote and all those things I
finally, were you still touring with the gates?
No, I was, I was in a dark room. I had already resigned gaithers And I was, you know, at home, I married to job, the patience of Job. My husband was so patient. You know, at times he would get very frustrated with me because I wasn't rational. You know, it's not rational that your children would be better off without you and that your husband would it's not rational.
But he was very patient with me, and if I needed to lie in a dark room for a week, then he then he allowed it, and every day Jeff, he would come in and I'd be lying in a dark room. I'm not even sure I had showered and and he would just lay his hands on me, pray for me and try to encourage me and leave me Leave me be. It's very, very kind, but I on this journey to find the source. Because of my pain, I realized that I I was my problem. I was my biggest problem because there was not enough success. Seemed see my my fear was, had I done enough with my life? Had I received enough awards? Was I being invited to, you know, to this event? Are, you know, those kinds of things, and so I
think it plagues a lot of entertainers. It's so easy because there's never enough. There's always somebody or some other level to reach. Yes, you know, I catch myself even now at this late stage of my career, going envy is creeping in, which it never did before. And it's like, you catch it and you go, my gosh, but it's such a natural human thing that's right to chase, and especially you come from a family of of entertainers, right? That's right, yeah. So there were probably a lot of expectations put on you.
A lot of expectations. You know, I remember, there is a passage of scripture in Acts that says that when Peter was set free from the prison, he was in this prison, he's sitting in feces, and he's chained to two guards, and an angel wakes him up and says, Get up. I want you to go out. And he opens the prison door, and he opens the gate to the city, and he walks out, and this is what the Bible says that he was set free from the expectation of the people, and I feel like that.
That is one of the gifts that this journey of depression gave me, because it set me free from the expectations of the people around me, and I could be candy. So where we're going in this conversation is that through this this dark time, I think it is maybe, oh goodness, my mind went blank. John of Assisi, I believe it was that says that he's called it a dark night of the soul. And it, this was my dark night of the soul. It was a total eclipse of my entire life. And it, yes, it was a closed door to where I had been, but it was also an open door to my destiny, because I met homeless people singing on the road and being an entertainer. I had never really met a homeless person before, and so I met this guy who was laying tile in a friend's house. A friend said, Hey, I'm bill in the House.
I want you to come see this house. So I come, I go to the house, and there's this old gentleman in the house, and he's laying tile, and he'd seen me on one of the Gaither videos before, and I was literally unrecognizable because I had that mask. I love that. What that was brilliant. Thank you for that, that analogy, because he saw that on me, and he said, wow, you know you, you look different. You, you because on the Gaither videos, I was very energetic and
right, and you've lost your petite thing to begin with. Oh, I was there's anything you couldn't afford to lose.
Thank you. But he said, You know, I roast hot dogs for homeless people. And he said, You look like you could use a pick me up. He said, Why don't you meet me down on Second Avenue there in Nashville, and I'm standing there so thin and so bony. He said, Can you cook? And I said, Yeah, I can cook. I was raised in Louisiana, and I can cook jambalaya for any size crowd. You just add more rice. And so he said, Well, I'll make you jambalaya and meet me on a Tuesday night down under the bridge. I've got some folks I want you to meet, so I cooked up a pot of jambalaya and I met him under the bridge.
And that's where my whole life began to change, because my problems were here. My problems were, have I had enough awards? Did I make enough money? Is my home big enough? Am I invited to the right places? Right? But their problems, these homeless people that I met under this bridge, their problems were i. If it rains, I'm going to sleep cold, and if and if I don't get help, I'll be eating out of a dumpster. Those are real, real problems. Mine, my problems were imaginary, and so I I met the Most Gracious and loving and appreciative people. And guess what? They'd never heard of me. They didn't.
They didn't care whether I sang or I didn't, you know, I don't know. So the biggest question they had for me, it's not, you know, Are you famous? It was this gospel that you have, this Christianity that you're talking about. Will it work for me? You know, all the Christian Christianese, the Christian jargon, you know, all that it doesn't work down there.
Yeah, they're not sitting around looking at the post trib, pre trib, that's exactly right. And they're not my brother. One of the reasons why I was so attracted to what you're doing is that my brother would live on and off the streets. He was a drug addicted, and he'd get clean and his my niece would pull him off the streets and clean him up. And we were even at a point as a family where, you know, you you have to let him go. Yeah, my mother was like most parents, guilt ridden for years, sure.
And I said, Mom, the streets are full of somebody's children. And I kind of look at it from a Romans one perspective, where God turned an entire generation over to the desires. At some point, even a loving parent has to tell the rebellious child. But then you get into that and to try to get out of that, and this is what I've read. You can tell me because you're steeped in this, but if your basic need food is not met, the logic where people go, why don't you just go get a job? Right? Well, I can't think to get a job, because all I'm thinking about is feeding myself and until that need is met. That's right, all the other needs can't be even you don't even think about That's right. You're just focused on getting that one need met. And what is interesting to me is, because
most of us, and I'm one of them, I see the problem. I know the problem, but I just don't feel the need to drop what I'm doing, to do it. You did that, and you say it saved your life. It did save my life, right?
But so, so I think you may think better of me than I am. I didn't drop everything to do that. I dropped everything because I couldn't do anything else. I was totally incapacitated by this, by by this depression and this dark cloud, and so my life literally came to a screeching halt. And the if I could put it like this, the homeless people, I didn't rescue them. They rescued me. They did more for me than I could ever do for them. Wow.
And one of the things that, again, I what I love, because our small group, once a quarter comes down. Thank you for that, too. Thank you. Well again, Tammy and I, the first time we went down and served with you under the bridge. We drove home and said, This is our new church. We're gonna come every Tuesday, and then the next week it rained. Yeah? Said, Well, maybe next week, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have not missed a Tuesday in 21 years.
Yeah, it's what gets me up and I owe I owe them, yeah, and, and I
it's, well, they love you. I could tell you that I you know, we see that. And what I love is when you walk out and you go, if no one's told you they love you today, I love you. Jesus loves you. And you have churches come in, that's right. How would it now, if there was someone watching this that has a church choir or whatever, would love to come and serve with you? Do they reach directly out to the bridge?
Yeah, bridge ministry.org, and. And, you know, there's a place where you can click to to volunteer, and we have all sorts of volunteer opportunities, because we feed 5000 children a week, right? What? What we do under the bridge is just a very small part of what we of what we do?
Totally, yeah, you feed the on Thursdays. Is it Yes?
Because the children go home on on Friday. So children, school children get free lunches through the week here in the state of Tennessee, but on the weekends, most of these children are in food insecure households, and so they have to be nutrition specific, because we can't just send, you know, crackers and chips and cookies home with these school children. So we have, you know, little soups and little Beanie Weenies and all these little things that their little fingers can can open and very nutritious. And so we serve about 5000 every every Thursday
and Friday, we do all from one pint of jumbo line, all from
one I could have never imagined it. And on Thursday, we serve a lower income area where there are is a high population of elderly people and not a grocery store in sight, and so we go down and we serve about 1100 hot meals, just on Thursday. Wow. Just love on people.
Okay, so 20 years ago, you would talk to people, because I know you talk to the people. Are you hearing any different stories 20 years later, is there more of a need because of certain things? Or, I don't know if I'm phrasing the question, yeah, no, you know. Why are the stories always the same?
The stories are generally the same. People get down on their luck. They don't know what to do, and they fall on hard times, and we try to be there for them. The sad part of my job, the saddest part, but yet the happiest part. If I could say it that way, when people get better, they get up and they move on, and then many times they don't come back because we're a sad reminder of the lowest place, the darkest, The Dark Night of their soul and so but we have many, many success stories, so many people that have come back to serve on the other side of the table, Right? So you know, when you were talking about your brother, I was thinking about a man, Michael lash. And the first three years that I knew Michael lash, he was the proverbial homeless guy.
He was so inebriated, Jeff that I didn't know how he stood. He pushed a cart, and all of his belongings that he had in the world was just in this one grocery cart, this buggy, and but I don't know I loved him. I just still love him. He's wonderful. But for three years, he just stayed drunk and homeless. And there were times today it's cold. It's December 1. Today. It's cold. When I got up this morning, it was 25 and a lot of your Die Hard homeless guys, they prepare for the winter, and they don't come in, they don't they won't go into the shelter.
Because you think, well, that's crazy. Why wouldn't they go in the shelter? It's a hot meal and a warm bed, but all of their belongings are in their encampment or in their buggy, and so they can't take those things into the shelter. Many of them have a pet, and their pet has become their their family member, because they feel disenfranchised from society, from the community. So this is this is my family here, and they can't take it into the mission. So Michael, after three years, he just, he, he just something in him snapped.
And, you know, maybe you can speak to that you one day, you get a resolve, I'm going to make a change, right? And I wish I could, I wish I had that in a bottle that I could hand out to the homeless people and say, Here it is, you know. And but he did, and it took his family about nine years to trust him again, because they'd been on this cycle that your brother was on. He'd get out he he'd get off the alcohol and fall off the wagon, get off and and so they were tired of getting their hearts broken.
Yeah, my brother used to say he goes, I know you guys think I can't handle hard times. I can't handle good times. Wow. My brother felt that he was not entitled to be at peace and. Prosperous. So as he became so it was interesting. He never really put a year together until he got into his late 60s. And the funny thing to me was he had been in and out of rehab, in and out of AA meetings in and out of and he was about two or three years sober.
And my sister called me, he was coming up on his 62nd birthday, I think it was, and she said he can apply for Social Security benefits at 62 and we were about eight months short of his birthday. She said, Would you be willing to pay his rent? I said, I've always been willing to pay his rent.
I always want to put a roof over his head. He just wanted cash to go out and buy crack and drink and so anyway, when he finally got sober for a number of years, I asked him. I said, What was the catalyst? Because of all those years, you know, what changed? What changed? Because obviously it wasn't a bottom as far as finances or life goals or whatever else triggers people to make changes. He said to me, he goes.
I finally realized it's the first drink. If I don't have the first drink, I don't wind up in the crack house, which is like aa 101, 40 years ago, in his first meeting, yeah, when he went in, but they, you know, in God's time, yeah, for sure, I prayed for my brother literally every day for 20 years, every morning and every night. He was the first prayer. You know we can't do anything. We have surrendered to that. And the stories are all different, but the result of living on the streets, it's got to be heartbreaking for you. It is because I know your heart so you get emotionally involved with people and you want to see the change. But you know, you're not the change agent.
I can't be. I can't be. You know, one of the sweetest men that I fed died in a port of John, he froze to death. He got in the port of John to try to get warm, and he literally froze to death. And it broke all of our hearts. You want to help. You want to do something. One of my dreams is to have a facility, a transitional housing facility, that we can bring people in, get them sober and clean, teach, Celebrate Recovery and those kinds of things. Teach people how to look for a job, yeah, and and how to get a job, how to keep a job, how to balance your checkbook and and just the simple basic things, and get them back out into society.
I will say this for me now, addiction wasn't wasn't my problem, but for me and my depression, it was that I began to help other people. I read this doctor's report one time, and it changed my life, because this doctor said that doing acts of kindness for people who can't reciprocate, reciprocate, it releases an endorphin in your body, and it's called oxytocin, and it's that it's that high that you feel at Christmas when you know you've gotten your wife the gift that you wanted to give her, arts, the feeling that you felt in grammar school when you when you felt puppy Love.
That's oxytocin, and when you do acts of kindness and you serve people and you do for others, it releases this endorphin. And this doctor's report says that it is, he likened it to a cocaine high, right? He said it feels, it feels like cocaine, a cocaine I've never done cocaine, but I know that high very, very well, and so that was the very catalyst that pulled me out of the darkest place of my life. Was doing for others. Yeah,
endorphins are the body's natural morphine. I've never heard that, but I like it, and they call it a runner's high. You run this euphoria, yeah, and as you were talking, I was thinking, as Christians, we believe, I believe that again, keep it first person, that we are wired as human, but God wired us of. Him to serve and to worship, worship and serve what you worship, you'll serve. And that's good. When we're in worship and we're in service in line with him, then I believe we do get those natural there's a question. I love this one. You lived through all of it, the 2008 recession, the opiate crisis, covid, fentanyl today. And do you see much fentanyl?
I do? Yeah, I do. Boy and I just performed a funeral for a young man that passed away on fentanyl left four
children, that stuff. I know I bought drugs for years,
total strangers, just being in clubs, all on the road. And I know I'd be dead from that. Yeah, I know it would be, yeah, you know, and I'm one of these at a point now where I think if you get caught dealing fentanyl, you should just go away for attempted murder. Yeah, that should be the charge, because, you know what it does. It is
absolutely and I've talked to more than one parent on the road who lost young children from experimenting and just got the wrong thing. You know, how many parents are in your lines that have children? Do you see families? Entire families?
I do see entire families, but many of these families are living in vehicles or in motel rooms, and so if you'll notice that at the at the beginning of the month, our crowd is lower than at the end of the month. At the beginning of the month, many of them get a government check, and they're able to get a motel room. By the end of the month, there's no money, there's no food. The children suffer.
I think the saddest thing that I see is that these children live in households, if you can call it that, of addicted parents. And so whatever resources they have, many times, will go in the veins of their parents or Up the nose or alcohol related, whatever. And so then the children are very vulnerable, and it's a very difficult thing to stand by and watch again. That's why I want a transitional housing facility that I can bring families into with small children, because most of your facilities like that in this city, you can't take your children in. In other words, there's not a family facility unless you're an addicted parent, so just people that are down on their luck, or that have moved here or whatnot. Well, it's interesting.
I did a show for a ministry in Alabama a number of years ago, a young guy and I asked, always asked before, if I'm not familiar with you know, they hire me to do comedy,
you know, and you're wonderful, and I'm your biggest fan. Well, thank you. I am your biggest fan. I can't believe I'm sitting here with Jeff Allen, true story.
But anyway, I asked the guy, what am I raising money for? He said, Well, simply, I teach middle class skills for men coming out of prison, and that's what he talking about. He goes things that we take for granted. We've been taught by our parents, why you shower and shave before a job interview, why you wear nice clothes to a job interview, why you clean up your nails and all these things, just basics that are stuff that are ingrained, because our parents taught that stuff. And I said that you always want to do that. He goes, Oh, gosh, no. He goes, I got an MBA from Harvard. I went to New York.
I was going to run a hedge fund and be really rich. And I said, what happened? He said, God, happened? I go. What do you mean? He goes, I don't know. About a year into that life, you know, and what popped into my head was I had heard years ago. I don't know if it's true or not, but I carry it with me as a truth. The word inspiration literally means God breathed. So wow, what I when I got on stage, I thought this was such a great picture. And this is what I think of you when I think of this, that this man said, I'm going to raise I'm going to go to New York, I'm going to be a hedge fund manager, I'm going to be a millionaire. And God went all right, maybe I'll go to Alabama, and I'll work with these homeless guys coming on. Yeah, and I think of you when I think of that, I think that God just breathes into you when they said, candy, candy. You know, those singing accolades and all that stuff. You know,
God set me free from all of that. I'm so I'm so grateful. It's the really, truly, it's the greatest gift that that that God has given me outside of my family and a relationship with Christ salvation. This is the this is the best. It's the greatest. You know, I remember in in when I sang gospel music, and I would go do a concert somewhere. I would go places and I would be too southern gospel.
Now some people will relate to this, and some people I go another place and I was too contemporary, or I would go another place and I sang too many old songs, and then you go, and it's like, if I can hit your flavor, if you know, then I can please you for the evening. The homeless people are. They're not like that. They're waiting to be loved, and they that's what that do you accept me? Do you? Do you love me? Will you embrace me? They don't. They don't care about what flavor we are. You know, I just, I don't know when the rubber meets the road, it's about love and humanity and non judgment. Non judgment,
yeah, because I I know my brother, he was hard. It was difficult for me to have a conversation with even after he had cleaned up, because of all the demons that he carried inside of him and his perceptions of what we thought of him, and all we wanted was for him to get well, that was the last five years of his life. He was clean, he was sober, and he was a good grandfather, and he finished Well, that's good. And he used to take his grandchildren out every Saturday to Dollar General. I think it was to buy a bag of crap. That's what he called it. And they would go, grandpa, we're gonna get our bag of crap. Today. We are gonna get your bag of crap. But I think of all the years that I missed with my brother because of my prejudice of judging him for the choices he made, and maybe again, that's why I get drawn so much to what you're doing is and I've tried to partner with you as much as I can financially. I know you do. I know
I really Tammy so, so I you, of course, you guys support us financially, and I'm, I'm so grateful, but also you don't mind getting your hands dirty. And just it
was funny, I got a little story about my wife, by the way. Oh yeah, last time we were there, we were in line to serve, right? And again, I don't do much. I tell jokes and hit golf balls. This basically. So we're in line, and you got the baskets, and each person has a basket that you hand out the sock basket, which is what everybody wants, socks, yes. So Tammy gets the toiletry basket. Well, they kind of look at it, but they want socks. Yeah. So she takes over my socks and the toy. She takes two baskets. Oh, funny. She just shoved me off pick up chairs. I just wanted to say publicly that I meant to hand out, yeah, case your people were judging me for walking away from this. You know, I heard so much about that you wouldn't believe. Thank you. Thank you for having our heart for what we're doing.
And I love it, and some of the people I've met are fascinating. You know, I met a guy was a doctor. Yeah, you know, there is no alcoholism and drug addiction is egalitarian. They don't ask you your status. They don't ask you where you started in life. And I know from personal experience that, but by the gods, by God's grace, I don't know how I stayed sober. I really don't I did everything wrong, but, but the one thing I did was I reached out and asked for help. Yeah, and we're here. Your plans in the future this? Are you beginning a foundation or to build this transitional Well,
we're, we are actively looking at property. We just went and looked at a hotel that is for sale here. It's just north of Nashville, yeah, and so, you know, it's been a long time dream. Mine. And we had, we had found a place in January of 2020, and we were working on the deal and negotiating, and it just kept tripping. I don't know, it just, you know, every little bump in the road would delay it, and then covid, you know, in March. So about, about the end of March, I was real thankful that.
How did it work with the city and covid, because of all the rules that they had, obviously, you stayed open. And yes we did. You were able to serve.
Yes, we did. So covid was really interesting for us. Of course, you know, we tried to follow all the guidelines, the mask and the gloves and, you know, all all the things. But a lot of your other 501, C threes shut down, so they had resources that they couldn't move.
So then, you know, I don't this is, this isn't warm and fuzzy, and maybe I shouldn't tell this, but they all came to the bridge where we were and we were distributing, and they started distributing. We had a we had a glut of resources, yeah, which drew gangs, and then gang wars started under the bridge, oh, wow, and drugs ran rampant, and we had to amp up on our police protection. And, I mean, it really got crazy down there for a while. There were stabbings and, you know, all kinds of crazy things. But we made it. We made it. I will say that in the beginning, a lot of your homeless people, they don't have access to the news, so they didn't know what was happening, right? And we showed up with masks and gloves and and we're trying to social distance, which that went out the window. We were trying, you know, we were trying to be obedient and compliant. And the homeless, though their response was heartbreaking, because they said, y'all act like we have some kind of disease.
Oh my gosh, they thought it was them. Why? Why are you
protecting yourselves? Right from us? And it took us a while to to make them understand we're we're not protecting ourselves, we're protecting you. You're the most vulnerable people in this city, right? And so our mask and gloves are to protect you from, you know, this looming. Yeah, we didn't know what it was. Well, we really didn't. So anyway, it's been an interesting journey. You know, Katrina. When Katrina happened, a lot of people migrated to Nashville, and I fed people from New Orleans that came up and were homeless during Katrina. They enjoyed the jambalaya. I was gonna say they
interesting to see the cycles and, you know, the political client climates and all these things that that happened that add all these nuances to the
bridge and with the economy the way it had been. Did you see donations decline? So are you pretty steady with your we
have very faithful donors. But I'm just gonna say it, it's a, it's a dark hole. It's, it's, it's endless. The seems like the more money you get, the more mouths you have to feed in the people you're trying to reach. And so our motto is that we serve with an open hand. We're not close fisted to anybody. And so, you know, we don't, we don't make them qualify for the food. If you're hungry, come. That's what Jesus said. Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And so that's my motto. And so, you know, the the needs are great, but God is faithful, and he's and he's always supplied, and so we just keep trucking them. You got
a great crew. Thank you. Jennifer's amazing. Yeah. And the heart, again, the joy of being around people, it's so so it's not ironic. If the word is ironic. It's just you go where people are employed and they're go stop dealing with the public. You're not made up. Obviously. You're not a people person. Yeah, so, but to walk into that basically any five. Oh, 1c where people are there voluntarily, but that calling,
and obviously this is a calling for you, the joy that exudes from the people that you know even come to, like our small group that we always go to monelles Afterwards, Oh, you do have a meal, and we were breaking bread after the meal or after working. And the first thing to ask is, when can we go back? When can we go back? I said, well, they have, you know, so many volunteers, and everybody should have a right to volunteer and get in, but it makes it so much easier to volunteer when you walk in and you just not only see the gratitude on the people who are being served, but the people that are doing the serving. You're right. We get more out of it
so true? Yeah, we do. Well, God has given us a very unique and eclectic group of people that are our employees there, and this is the truth. I'm not making this up. When they take vacation time, many times they go overseas to do missionary work and stuff, they're wonderful people that are underpaid for their qualifications. They could have better jobs somewhere. They're there because they and I can name you, names people on staff that could make so much money, some somewhere else. But they're they're with us because their heart has drawn them to the well, it
comes from the top down. Well, thank you. You know, again, you're a beacon of light that draws people to you. And again, I wasn't that familiar with your singing career. I was I wasn't familiar with Gaither until I started working with them.
with with Tammy. Tammy served for Meals on Wheels in Fairview, where we live, and she would come back with these just heartbreaking stories of seniors who are living alone, whose children live a mile or two away, never see them, never see them, and the only contact they have with people are the people who serve them. And what I'm trying to get to is the people that you serve are at least able to get to you and where you're at under the bridge. You know the need is all over. And the point I'm trying to make to people watching this. If you live, no matter where you live, and you're watching this, there is a need for volunteers to to reach people no fault of their own in a lot of cases. And there's such a stigma with that, why don't they just and then fill in the blank. And I talked to one of your people that were there, was so proud. He's getting his nursing degree next semester. Oh, wow, yeah, that's great. And he said it was all because of candy and bridge.
Well, I don't know a lot of people haven't made the connection that if you're homeless, you can't get a driver's license, because every driver's license requires an address, right? So if you're homeless, you can't get a driver's license. If you don't have a driver's license, you can't drive to work. So it's like this, do
something simple, like Uber, yeah, you know, yeah, and or DoorDash, or, you know, jobs that you could do if you had a just some as simple, again, yeah, we take for granted. We take for granted.
But it's like this rabbit hole that they get started on and and at the end of it, you stand there and say, What do I do? You know, how do I it's easy to say, go get a job. But, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a dark hole for a lot of these people that they don't know how to get out of.
There's homeless encampments all around, certainly our area, I've driven by them. If somebody wanted to do what you did, volunteer, especially a woman, to go down there by themselves. It's probably. Be frightening and intimidating. There is mental health issues. Yes, I would not recommend it. I do not Yeah, yeah. Now you went down the first time with a guy who was already established. He was cooking hot dogs, right? How would you recommend, if there is a recommendation on how you would get started, because it's, you know, in their area, it may be a small encampment of 20 or 30 people, but obviously they need food.
Or so, I would see if there is another ministry that is already going there and and join in with them to go. Or I would go to my pastor and and see if you could get a church group to go. I think also, I would ask the local police department if you could get an officer to go with you. Charlie Strobel, here in Nashville, he started his his ministry to the homeless because his mother went down alone to feed a homeless person, and he was on drugs, and he murdered her, and Charlie Strobel, who was a Catholic priest, and he stepped down from the priesthood and got into the homeless ministry, and now has gone on to be with the Lord, but that was a catalyst to get him involved In the in the feeding the homeless. So I don't, I don't recommend going down alone. But that doesn't mean don't do it there. There are places to start. And I believe I would start with my my pastor, my local church, and say, hey, you know are, are your rotary group, or who, whoever you're
in, and you get churches to come in and lead worship and preach messages, and you preach you are. I told Tammy. I said, you could you you could fire me sometimes,
after I get in the car and I go, why did I say that the last time, the last time that that you were down there, I thought, Oh, I wish I'd have known they were they were coming. I would have had Jeff Allen speak again. They love you down there. They really do. Oh, I
don't know about that, but it's it was funny the last time I when I started doing the comedy that was bombing, and I just went into testimony, yeah, maybe something they can relate to drug addiction and alcoholism and you know, but I am your husband. When we were at the fundraiser, he prays every year. Does he pray like that at dinner? He is old school, just the coolest. He is old school. You don't hear that much, and it is, I feel like if he ever prayed for me that it would be heard.
Thank you. He did, and I have to credit a lot of my recovery and inner healing to him and his prayers. He is a praying man, and the patience, patience, my goodness, I don't know that I could have done what he did. So I'm sure you could.
You got a great heart. I don't know if we have any more. I got a bunch of questions, but we've probably covered all of them. Every time I look at one, I go, we've covered that. Here's one. After all these years of feeding people, what have the hungry taught you about? God.
What have the hungry taught me about God? Gosh, that's really hard. I don't know. I guess, total dependence on the Lord. Because, you know, God used a raven for Elijah, and he picked me just to serve. I don't know, total dependence on God
that is really a good place to be. It is as one who has been driven to his knees more than once in his life, that there's so much strength in that surrender, if you put your hope in Him and so to the people Watching that may be moved to help, obviously, resources, financial, time, talent, treasure, if you don't have the time or the talent or the treasure, but you got the time, I can vouch that an idiot like me can go down there and help if I can keep my wife away from hell. But long enough, you know, but Well,
you never know who you're talking to. I'm sure you have a very vast and diverse audience, yeah, and there may be somebody listening that has connections for for food and truckloads of food, and you know, corporations that that have overage and those kinds of things, we can use everything to help, you know, from socks to potato chips and so, you know, you just never know who you're speaking to, but one person can't do everything, no, but if everybody does something, we can make a change. We can make a difference.
Well, you are. You're making a huge difference. And what I love about it is it's, it's, it's not for your glory at all. No, you know that's and it's, it's so hard. And as someone who's been on stage, and you know, you want to put the light on you, but at least, I hate to say this, but you were given a gift of desperation.
So well said, Thank you. Wow. You know you're really deep. To be such a funny guy. You're really
years of 12 step. Wow.
The gift of desperation. Who are you that is awesome. Thank you.
And there are people out there watching now that are desperate and they're looking for a way out. That's right. Again, it's different for everybody, but I can personally speak that until I started stepping outside of my my own comfort zones, those dark days
when I started stepping out, they got farther and farther apart. I still have them, but they're farther apart from each other. What used to be normal is now the anomaly. I'm sure you have struggles, of course, like the rest of us do, but to have purpose in life and meaning is what we were here for, and that will come through prayer and supplication, you're a shining example of again, your inspiration. Thank you and thank you for coming in. Thank you for the I know you're a busy person. This is Monday, so you got Tuesday. Tomorrow is under the bridge, and it will be 24 degrees, Tammy and I will not be there, sad to say, but candy Christmas. Thank you so much. Where can they find you? Bridge ministry.org,
bridge ministry.org, you got that. Bridge ministry.org, and at this time of year, especially with Christmas coming and the cold coming, coats, gloves. Yes, socks, socks. My brother, when he was homeless, said that the greatest feeling was when he got off the streets and he put on a clean pair of socks. There was he said there was nothing like it.
And I remember him telling me stories. He used to go into 711 late at night, and he go to the cashier, just call the cops and tell them I tried to steal something. I don't want to steal anything. I don't want to hit you. I just want to get arrested so I have a warm place to sleep. And the cop would come in and go, sorry, but jails are full. They had no place to put them, and it was hard to drive through Nashville and see people and not see my brother's face. So I'm sure there are people watching that have family members in there. And the hope is I know I've met, people who've gotten out from that situation and have gone on to lead productive and giving lives. That's right. You know, we meet them at your fundraiser once a year. We see the success stories. So thank you again. Thank you and God bless you guys. And we'll still looking for the idiot that gave me a podcast, so we'll see you out on the road.