Today we’d like to introduce you to Pastor Tracy and wife Sunshine Gantt.
Hi Tracy and Sunshine, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We got married at the young ages of 18 and 22. Our marriage was troubled early on. We separated after only being married for approximately two years. We never obtained a legal separation, nor did we get divorced. We were separated for eight years. During those eight years, we both experienced homelessness and alcoholism. In addition, Tracy experienced drug addiction and served a two-year prison sentence. While we separated, God began working on both of us. After HIS Work was completed, God placed us back together to reconcile our marriage in 2009. Several years later, things began to take off for us.
We began as business owners in 2012, with thrift store locations in Easley, SC, and Marietta, SC, winning an Easley Patch 2012 Reader’s Choice for Best Children’s Clothing award. We had a true passion for outreach, giving back to our community, and showing the love of Christ. There was an elderly gentleman who frequently visited our store. He informed us that he was a pastor at New Deliverance Baptist Church. He invited us to attend his service. We accepted his invitation. When we arrived, we quickly learned he had no members. The Pastor, his wife, us, and our child were there. This Pastor knew we had a true passion for helping people. Our prices on our thrift store items indicated that we weren’t trying to make a profit; we sold everything for $1. He invited us to move our thrift store items into his church and give them away. As a result, we closed our stores in 2013 to focus on ministry and outreach full-time. New Deliverance Baptist Church became our church home.
- On May 6, 2015 – The Senior Pastor of our church, New Deliverance Baptist Church, passed away. At that time, Tracy Gantt went from Associate Pastor to Senior Pastor. We decided to change the name by taking Baptist Church off. We became nondenominational, serving Jesus Christ.
- June 27, 2015 – We hosted our first community outreach cookout at New Deliverance. We invited the Easley Police Department and local law enforcement. This cookout was for two reasons: to introduce Pastor Gantt to the community as Senior Pastor and to bring law enforcement and the community together. This was when tension was extremely high between the African-American community and law enforcement. Fox Carolina News covered a story on this event. This began our partnership with the City of Easley.
- In December 2015 – We did a program called Prison Mommies. We provided Christmas gifts for the children of incarcerated women. The response was too overwhelming for us to maintain alone, so we only did this program for one year.
- 2016 – We began providing backpacks and school supplies after encountering many poverty-stricken children in the community. We started extremely small, only providing approximately 50 backpacks filled with school supplies. We quickly progressed to hosting an annual back-to-school bash. We provide 1,000 or more backpacks and school supplies. The event includes water slides, games, music, free food, and various vendors. The local law enforcement, government officials, first responders, businesses, and community members partner with us to help host this amazing event each year. During our first two years, The Upstate College of Cosmetology played a major part in this event. They partnered with us to provide free hairstyles and haircuts for the children. There’s plenty of news coverage for these events.
- 2018- We began helping the poverty-stricken in our community by having free yard sales. We travel to various cities within Pickens County, setting up yard sales. The items vary from clothing, shoes, necessities, household items, appliances, furniture, etc. Unlike other yard sales, all the items are free (no strings attached). With approval from business owners, city officials, and county officials, we’ve held our free yard sales at The Pickens County Magistrate Offices, The Performing Arts Center, Pickens Courthouse Parking lot, Liberty Middle School, Pickens Garden Apartments, SHARE of Pickens County parking lot, etc.
- 2018- We were already clothing, feeding, and assisting the homeless and poverty-stricken. The only task that we couldn’t provide assistance with was providing emergency shelter. It took two years to renovate our building to get approval to open as a homeless shelter.
- March 13, 2020-We received our Certificate of Occupancy to open Pickens County Shelter of Hope. A few days later, the Government’s COVID-19 restrictions shut everything down. We had to contact the Governor of SC to be approved to open Pickens County Shelter of Hope as an essential business.
- April 3, 2020 – We received approval from the South Carolina Department of Commerce to operate Pickens County Shelter of Hope as an essential business.
- April 4, 2020 – We opened our doors to Pickens County Shelter of Hope, the first and only homeless shelter for Pickens County, SC. We’ve been conducting an outreach ministry for 8 years and owners of our shelter for 3 years. To date, we’ve had many success stories.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road at all. We’ve overcome a failed marriage and 8-year separation, homelessness, drug addiction, alcoholism, prison, foreclosure on our home, losing everything we owned, unemployment, not having food to eat, setbacks trying to open our homeless shelter, discrimination, and struggling to sustain our ministry. The sad thing many people are unaware of is that we experienced foreclosure and no food while helping others. But GOD always worked things out and protected us.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
We provide tangible items, resources, food, clothing, showers, clothes washing, necessities, etc to the poverty-stricken community of Pickens County SC. We provide everything listed above, along with emergency shelter for the homeless. We’ve been doing outreach for nearly a decade. In 2019, we received a Proclamation from the former Mayor of Easley SC. Former SC Governor Nikki Haley and current SC Governor Henry McMaster commended us through letters for all of our hard work and dedication. We are also 2022 recipients of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award.
Being the Founders of an outreach ministry, a Pastor and Pastor’s wife, and owners of the only homeless shelter for an entire County, we have our plates extremely full. We are a very small organization, so our involvement and hands-on activity is very extensive. Our days consist of behind-the-scenes work trying to maintain our ministry and keeping the doors of our homeless shelter open. During downtime of operating his business, Pastor Gantt does all of the donation pickups for our ministry himself; which is a hard task within itself.
We are blessed with some amazing volunteer staff members who reside on site at our homeless shelter. Tracy McJunkins is our live-in house manager. Brandi Berger is our live-in assistant house manager. They both oversee the day-to-day operations of our homeless shelter. Mandy Lamberth was formerly our live-in kitchen manager. She recently accepted a new role as our live-in administrative assistant. She assists us with behind-the-scenes administrative tasks for our ministry. Robert Sheriff has recently been appointed to the position of live-in kitchen manager. He ensures that all of the meals are prepared for our homeless shelter residents. None of us take a salary for what we do. We don’t charge our homeless shelter residents to stay at our shelter. This gives them a fighting chance to work and save money to get back on their feet. Pastor Gantt doesn’t even take a salary for preaching. Our church tithe and offering goes directly back into our ministry and the community. We work extremely hard volunteering every day and have a passion for what we do. We have faith that one day our financial blessings will really begin to overflow. Regardless, we’re extremely thankful for what we have and how God has sustained us thus far.
How do you think about luck?
We can’t say we’ve had bad luck. Yes, we’ve had many bad experiences in life and business, but eventually, God worked everything out in our favor. We’ve fought battles and won. We’ve lost and regained. We call our good “luck” God’s favor.
Pricing:
- Pastor Tracy Gantt’s detergent products are $25 for a 5 gallon bucket of liquid
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tsgministries.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TSGMinistries/
Image Credits
Tracy and Sunshine, Gantt Tracy, McJunkins Jeremiah, Drummond Ginger, Sheetz Florez
