Bless-N-Basket

 Brandy and Tony Mitchell knew the Lord was leading them to do something for their community in Lincoln, Ala., but it took them a full year to understand where they were being led. And once they decided to take a leap of faith, it wasn’t long before their call to action resulted in blessings they could have never imagined.

 In 2017 the Mitchells started ministry school, and Brandy said it was then that the Lord began dealing with them about bringing people back to the heart of community. Childhood memories of how the community would come together to help families when someone passed away, or were struggling financially, led the Mitchells to think of ways in which they could take those memories, and that sense of community, and adapt it into a ministry.

 By July 2018, Brandy said, they knew God was leading them to do something involving food, and they made plans to invite a group of women over to their home and create a theme night that would include ingredient-specific items. The first idea was for a taco theme, in which participants would bring ingredients for tacos, place the items in a basket, and then draw names for the basket. The winner would then either take the basket home or bless someone else with it, and the ministry name was born: Bless-N-Basket. 

The Mitchell family: (pictured from left to right) Preston, Hannah,
Ava, Brandy, and Tony.

  The Mitchells’ friends and family fully supported the idea, and they helped share the news of the first event through Facebook posts. Within days of the Mitchells deciding they were going to do a food ministry, they were contacted about the prospect of starting a food pantry by someone who had no idea of the Mitchells’ decision. The Mitchells jumped at the chance to help.

 “So it started out in August of 2018. My husband and I would purchase the food in bulk. I created an event on Facebook, invited people and told them what we were going to be doing, and that we were going to share a devotion,” said Brandy. “Because one of the things the Lord had been dealing with me on was that there are a lot of people who won’t come to church, but they will come to someone’s home and that might be the only Jesus they get to see.

 “The first night we started out, we had 15 people.  We probably gave out 20 boxes, because those attending knew people who couldn’t come, or maybe who were homebound,” she said. “I kid you not, within three months it outgrew our house. We had a small storefront at the time, because my husband does cabinets and countertops. So we decided to move it to our business, and the first time we held it at our business, we had right at 100 families come.” 

 That level of participation would continue to grow for Bless-N-Basket over the next several months. The gatherings would take place once a month, on the third Saturday of each month, and anyone with a need would be invited to attend.

 “One of the things that sets us apart from other food banks is that we do not request proof of income,” said Brandy, “and we do not request residence. The only thing we say is if you have a need, or you know of a need, you come.

  

 “People would call and say, ‘My husband just lost his job, what do I need to bring you to show that?’ and we were able to say ‘nothing,’ because that’s how the Lord told us to do this. He said come as you are.  And we’ve had people question that, and say ‘well, what if they really aren’t in need?’ Well, that is not for us to know. We judge men by their appearance, but God judges the heart, and he told us to leave that in his hands.”

 Lincoln is a community with roughly 6,500 residents, and although the county has a government assistance program, as with all government programs, residents are required to prove they are eligible to receive assistance. The ministry of Bless-N-Basket has made it possible for people who are struggling but do not qualify for assistance programs, or individuals in any number of situations, to have an avenue of help.

 Because of the success of the first several Bless-N-Basket events, it wasn’t long before the Mitchells outgrew the storefront, so they starting praying for a new option. The Mitchells were also searching for a new church, and those two events would reveal more of God’s plan.

 “The Lord connected us with New Hope Ministries, who had just moved from Heflin, Ala., to Oxford, Ala., which is about 25-30 minutes closer to us,” Brandy said. “The pastor, Vicky Davis, came to us to see what we were doing. She said, ‘The Lord told me to not try to reinvent the wheel.’ She said they had been looking for a food ministry at their church, but no one there had a vision for that. She said ‘I believe you all have a vision and I’d like for you all to pray.’ Well, at the same time we were praying for a bigger place to have the Bless-N-Basket, and in January [2019] is when we moved to the New Hope Facility. 

 “When we started we were averaging 125-150 families. And now we are not even a year in and we’re averaging over 200 families. When you break it down it is between 500-600 individuals. It has been a God thing,” said Brandy. “We had people speak over us one time, and they said ‘I just see the Lord giving you regions.’ And we didn’t know what that would look like or what that would mean, but there have been people drive an hour or an hour and a half,to be a part of our food distribution on the third Saturday of every month.”

 Tony solicited local grocery stores for help, and currently nine stores donate boxes and surplus food either weekly or every other week. Local farmers also donate produce that they don’t want to see go to waste. The Mitchells partnered with Servants of Jesus, a local homeless ministry, to help them gain access to a food distribution center in Atlanta, Ga., and the Mitchells travel twice a month to collect the food. Although there are other food distribution networks available closer to Lincoln, Brandy said that if they use them it will limit who they can help, because the networks also require proof of income and residency. Although the center in Atlanta is farther away, it has the same goals as the Mitchells in helping people regardless of circumstances.

 The work that goes into preparing Bless-N-Basket is enormous. Every penny donated goes directly to the purchase of the food, and it takes the Mitchells, their extended family, and volunteers weeks to prepare for each event. Once the food arrives at the church, items are separated into boxes with each box providing for a family of four. Typically, each box will contain cereal, granola, beans, rice, two types of canned vegetables, soups, drinks, chips, and oatmeal. Bread and milk are also purchased to distribute, and baby food is available. Brandy estimated that each box could last up to a week and a half.

 “We don’t do a drive through ministry,” she added. “They come in and they register and we share the word. The scripture that God gave my husband and [me] was Matthew 4:4, ‘Man can not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ And if you don’t share Jesus with them, then they don’t know. So we began sharing Jesus, and since then—and because we moved to New Hope—it has made it so much easier to share the word with them. We’ve had people get saved, we’ve had people get healed.”

 Brandy said when the ministry started, she had a vision of holding a loaf of bread in one hand, the Bible in the other, and could hear herself saying “I can give you this loaf of bread, and within a week you will be hungry again, because the bread is gone. But I can give you this bread, the bread of life, that never goes out, never grows stale, never grows dry, and it keeps on giving.”

 “And that is what we want to do,” she said. “We want to share the love of Jesus Christ. God is not a mean God; he loves people. Yeah, he wants us to repent and turn from our sins, but for too long people have preached fire and brimstone to the point that people have this wrong view of who God really is.

 “You know, when people came to Jesus, they never left feeling like they were less. They felt encouraged. That is what we want to do. We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus, so when people come in contact with us they feel the love of God,” said Brandy. “The Bible talks about being salt. If you are making a pie, all pie dishes call for a dash of salt. And the reason for that is because it enhances the taste. You can have a pie without salt, but it will not be as good, or as sweet as it could be without that salt. That is what God wants to us to be. He wants us to be love, but don’t forget the salt, that truth. Don’t forget to share with them that we all have a choice.

  

 “At the start it was my husband and I who were buying the food. Now we have other people who are sowing into it, and it has brought people from everywhere, but it has also brought people from other churches together to volunteer. It is all for seeing people fall in love with Jesus,” she said.

The Mitchells continue to look for ways to help the ministry of Bless-N-Basket grow, and one recent idea helped them see a whole new way to reach people and break down perceived barriers in the community.

 “Two months ago we gave out 176 boxes, and we had 24 left over, and we didn’t want the boxes to just sit there, so we and two others in our ministry went out into the community. We went to this trailer park, and started knocking on doors and telling them who we were and what we were doing,” said Brandy. “I didn’t know at the time that it was a Hispanic community. My husband and I went into this one home, and they were so welcoming. They said they would like a box of food, so we gave it to them, and I left the house to go to the next trailer.”

 It was several minutes before Brandy realized Tony had not followed behind her, and she said she couldn’t find her husband for the longest time.  She then spotted him coming out of the house they had been in together and he was holding a to-go plate. 

  

 “The woman had made tamales and said ‘Because you blessed us, we want to bless you,’ and she would not let him walk out of that house until she gave him homemade tamales. And they were delicious!

 “We love people and it is because of God. It doesn’t matter how much money people have or how little. They are all the same. And when people come that is what we want them to feel,” said Brandy.  “You can be a rich man today and a beggar tomorrow, especially in the society we live in. Stock market could drop, you lose your job, get laid off, and then you’re that family that is in need. And we don’t want you to feel like that’s something you have to be ashamed of, because it is not.”

The Mitchells, along with Bless-N-Basket supporters, are praying for a warehouse, or even a storefront, so that they will have a place to store larger quantities of food and be able to distribute on more than just one day per month.  

 “Right now, we give out all our food on the third Saturday of the month. And we’ll have people call us all during the month needing food, and it is heartbreaking to have to tell them that we don’t have any,” said Brandy. “The need never stops. Single mamas, grandparents taking care of babies, etc. We are praying for sponsorships and people that want to partner with us to not just do this in Alabama, but in other states and other areas.”

 If you have a desire to help the ministry of Bless-N-Basket, or would like to contact the ministry and see how you can start a similar ministry in your community, contact the Mitchells at 256-676-8417, or through the Mitchells’ Facebook pages, Adoration Ministry and Bless-N-Basket.