Inspiring Conversations with Shelly Sassen of The Well Outreach

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shelly Sassen.

Hi Shelly, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.

Hello, my. name is Shelly Sassen!

I’m a local Williamson County resident since 1976 and grew up in Brentwood, Tn where I attended and was the first graduating class of Brentwood High School.

As a young person, I attended Xavier University where I majored in Marketing/Communications.

As a student, my first marketing internship was a full-time (temporary) job as an Admissions Counselor representing my college.. I also was very blessed to have my second college internship as the Director of Public Relations for one of the first laser-tag companies in the nation.

As a young graduate and businesswoman. I spent the first half of my career helping national companies with marketing strategies and programs, and then became an entrepreneur after moving back to Franklin, Tn to start and raise a family.

As a young businesswoman, I had lots of energy and always wanted to try something on my own. I loved the idea of merging value, design, and need, and opened my first Once Upon a Child franchise in Franklin, TN, and also introduced the brand to the middle Tennessee market.

Once Upon a Child, a national franchise with over 400 locations, is a “value-boutique” offering gently-used and new baby, Children’s, and Maternity items to both bargain shoppers and savvy shoppers.

The Franklin location showed success bringing in annual sales of $1 million+, and soon I purchased a second Once a Child location in Clarksville, TN.

Running both stores in two different communities alongside raising a family was challenging but exciting. Managing a staff of 25+ employees at the age of 35 taught me time management, goal-setting and to be organization, and how to develop strategies for my businesses.

Eventually, I opened a third business, another children’s franchise called “Jump!Zone”, a 9,000 sq ft inflatable party play center with a 250-person capacity.

Our primary audience was groups and special events. It was not unusual for Jump!Zone to host 12-15 events in one day! It was very exciting!

Eventually, I decided to go back to being a solo business owner and was blessed to sell my Clarksville Once Upon A Child, and Jump!Zone Franklin businesses for a profit, and focused solely on the Once Upon A Child Franklin. company.

It was at this time in my life while going through personal family hardships that I felt a calling to serve others. I found that offering love and service to those in need gave my life meaning and purpose, and allowed me to use my gifts of hospitality, communications, and organizational strategy in ministries at my local church.

I was blessed to be offered a part-time paid role at my local church helping navigate the volunteer end guest experiences as a “Connections Director” for a 3,500-person church. I also was given the opportunity to be one of the first female Deacons and also volunteered on the Congregational Care and Benevolence teams.

In doing so I had the privilege of serving those experiencing homelessness and going through difficult situations. It was at this time that God showed me he could use a businesswoman who loved people and liked the challenge of organizational strategy and operations to do his work.

At the end of 2018 I sold my last company and started looking for not just a career change, but a vocation.

In February 2019 I was hired as the first full-time Executive Director of The Well Outreach, a 13-year-old food ministry non-profit in Spring Hill, Tn.

The Well Outreach was known as a food ministry and for the great work they did walking alongside those who were hurting and in-need in their local community

At that time I joined The Well, their Food Pantry was serving 150-250 families a month with a week’s groceries, and offered a JetPack weekend student feeding program to 300 Students/week at 16 local Williamson and Maury County schools. They were located in a 1,500 square ft building and had one full-time Staff (me!) and two part-time Staff.

After dreaming about the possibilities of feeding MORE families in-need, and through the support of The Well Board of Directors, we hatched a plan to move to a larger 7,000 sq ft location.

Little did we know that the week we moved in (March 13, 2020), was the week of COVID and that God had even bigger plans than we had even imagined for that building and for The Well!

We expanded our food program geographical boundaries to include anyone in-need (if they could get to us), regardless of where they lived. That was a big step of faith as we moved into that building without even our first pallet of food.

This was a crazy time period with businesses all around us shutting down due to Covid and most people quarantining, but still, the Well stayed open to help our community in need which was growing bigger by the minute.

From 2019 to 2020 we increased the number of families we served a year through our Food Pantry from 2,400 to 4,400 families. The Well also pivoted and developed a “drive-through” Pantry model (due of Covid), and provided a safe and minimal contact food distribution system.

2020 and Covid came and went.

The Well stayed open every day during the pandemic to serve our community even though restaurants, and all types of other businesses around us were closing or quarantining. Every week we didn’t  know where the additional food needed would come from, but trusted in God’s provision, and he supplied our needs.

…and day by day our serving numbers were increasing and yet we always had enough food!

It was during this time The Well served even more in-need, including local business owners who were trying to make ends meet.

Fast forward to 2022, and The Well Outreach now serves 400% more families! At the end of 2022, we will have served over 7, 700 families through our Food Pantry (up from 2,400 in 2019!)

In the month of November 2022 alone, the Well served 1078 families with groceries, up from a 2019 monthly average of 200 families, and  also averaged 950 JetPack Students feeding servings, up from 350 Students a week in 2019.

The Well now has 14 Staff members and has purchased another 2,500 ft buildings to start a pilot grant program that focuses on not just serving those in need, but trying to move local families up and out of poverty.

In the span of three years, The Well has gone from a $240,000 annual budget to a $1.5 million dollar budget trying to affect change, offer hope, and acknowledge and walk alongside those in need.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Due to the increased serving need during Covid, we knew that as our organization was growing, our funding needed to as well.

Yet.. it was Covid… we were serving almost double the number of hurting families and knew that traditional fundraising wouldn’t work. People were quarantined inside their homes and a lot of our neighbors were sick, broken, and scared.

And because the need was EVEN BIGGER than ever before, we quickly realized the funding to support this need had to also be bigger than ever before!

The Well once again dreamt REALLY BIG, and came up with the idea to try and do a “drive-in concert” as a fundraiser as our normal fundraising concepts were not available because of social distancing. We hatched the idea to do a fundraiser that would not only provide the necessary funding, but might also provide a  night of hope to our community.

So even though The Well had never produced a concert before, we hatched a plan to pursue the biggest Christian music artist, “for King & Country” to partner with, especially since they had homes in the middle Tennessee area and were part of our local community.

Of course, we soon found out it was difficult to get through to the artists themselves. We were going to have to go through their national Artist management company.

So we called… and called… we sent emails, and left messages, but no one called us back.

Eventually, we were just lucky, and reached the Artist Manager himself, one day after his Secretary had left.

The Well explained our goal…and our NEED.

We shared the story of The Well Outreach’s food ministry and the incredible growth and need we were experiencing and the increased need to raise money to keep our doors open.

While they were sympathetic and kind, they didn’t really believe a local food pantry had the experience to produce an event of this size. They asked us to put together proposal on how we would lay things out, (of course not even the professional artist production companies had experience with drive-in concerts at that time), and how we would sell tickets.

So I went back to my personal marketing strategy and operations experience I had gained in my business career, and created a drive-in concert strategy.

I drew out a parking field that was socially distanced, (but still allowed for tail-gating in front of each car), and drew up the radio, e-mail, and social media plans.

I presented it, and the Artist management company gave us more homework; they wanted to know how would we price tickets and projections on how many we would sell, plus how we would write up the contract.

I didn’t really have this experience, but I knew what I was fighting for… to feed those in-need, a cause that REALLY mattered, so I strategized and drew up plans, and then drew up new plans. Eventually, we had a sound strategy and came back and presented it.

The last hurdle came when the Artist management company told us they believed in our cause, but just didn’t know if we had the necessary experience and business savvy to produce such a large, unproven event format and to work with such a large artist.

They knew we had the heart, and the need, but did our organization (and me) have the business, operating and marketing experience?

It wasn’t until the music agent asked what my personal business background was, that we got a real chance to produce this event.

When I explained I was a former multi-business owner and had marketing and operations experience they finally started taking our drive-in concert fundraiser seriously.

We worked on it together as a team and eventually signed a contract to produce a local drive-in concert for the nation’s largest Christian music artist, “for King & Country”!

This Well event and fundraiser ended up being a night of HOPE for our community.

We ended up producing the 4th highest-grossing concert in the nation for that Artist that year, and important funding for our food pantry, but maybe even more importantly, we were able to provide a safe, socially-distanced and uplifting event for our neighbors and community who had been quarantined and isolated.

The night of the concert we saw families standing and worshipping outside their cars and crying. We saw children dancing, and hearts and souls fed, plus money was raised for The Well Outreach Food Pantry!!!

(As a note, after the huge success of this concert, the Artist management company actually called The Well (and me!) back and asked us to produce a SECOND Drive-In Concert for the second-biggest Christian Artist, “Casting Crowns”. The Well produced this second drive-jn concert in 2021, which ended up as an even bigger financial success and The Well’s largest ever fundraiser.)

All of this… it’s about turning “Problems into opportunities”, which is one of The Well’s culture statements!

As you know, we’re big fans of The Well Outreach. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
The Well Outreach was founded in 2016 as a local food ministry at a local church in Spring Hill. Tn.

As the population of Spring Hill grew from 11,000 to over 55,000 today, so did the needs of the community, and The Well became a free-standing 501c3 non-profit and regional food ministry focusing on three things:

1) Food Pantry-

The Well Outreach Food Pantry serves anyone in need regardless of geographical boundaries and offers a “Client-Choice/Open Shop” model where guests in need can shop and select the food that helps their family the most.

In 2022, The Well Outreach Food Pantry fed over 7,700 local families with a week’s groceries.

2) JetPack Student Feeding Program-

This program supports at-risk Students who receive food support during the week at school, but face an empty pantry over the weekends while at home.

Each brightly-colored JetPack drawstring bag includes four nutritious weekend meals and two snacks for at-risk students facing food insecurity.

In 2022 The Well Outreach fed 980 Students a week at 25 local Williamson and Maury County schools. That’s almost 150,000 meals!

3) Mobile Food Pantry-

The Well hosts fifteen mobile food pantry giveaways a year in the communities of Spring Hill, Columbia, and Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee.

Each mobile pantry infuses 25,000 pounds of food into a local community, helping local families in need. In 2022 The Well Outreach distributed 375,000 meals through their Mobile Food Pantries.

The mission of The Well does is to be the hands and feet of Christ by helping those who are hurting by meeting physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Our goal is to recognize every person individually and offer compassion and respect and treat each person with dignity and love just like Christ did when he walked alongside those that were marginalized and broken-spirited.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?

The Well has a dream to produce a tractor-trailer-sized “Mobile Food Pantry Truck” which would enable us to bring food relief into impoverished areas, rural communities, and areas affected by natural disasters.

The Well Outreach also has a goal of opening a second Food Pantry in southern Maury County, and expanding our Student JetPack ministry to neighboring counties.

Contact Info:

• Website: springhillwell.org
• Instagram: @springhillwell
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewelloutreach?mibextid=LQQJ4d