We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tracy and Sunshine Gantt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tracy and Sunshine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

We married at a young age. Unfortunately, our marriage took a turn for the worse approximately two years in. We separated. During our separation, both of our lives spiraled downhill. Tracy experienced incarceration, homelessness, alcoholism, drug addiction and homelessness. Tracy entered into a homeless shelter while running from the law. God spoke to him and said, “It’s time to stop running.” So, Tracy turned himself in. Sunshine experienced clubbing, alcoholism and homelessness. While in prison, Tracy had a vision from God about helping people who are suffering from the same characteristics that he battled with. When Tracy got released from prison, he had the choice of either returning to the streets and his sinful lifestyle or returning to the same homeless shelter he sought refuge from years prior. He chose to return to the homeless shelter (The Haven of Rest). This shelter was Christian-based and taught the bible 24/7. They offered a two year program and Tracy stayed for the entire two years. At this point, we had been separated for eight years. During our separation, God was working on both of us. Tracy searched diligently trying to locate Sunshine, but couldn’t find her. I was being convicted by God, so I finally reached out to find him. We reconciled our marriage in 2009. We opened several thrift stores. We had this one elderly gentleman who frequented one of our store locations. He mentioned that he was a pastor. We decided to visit his church for service one Sunday. The pastor, his wife and the two of us were the only people present for service. The elderly pastor took Tracy under his wing and licensed him as a pastor. This was very meaningful because no other pastor in the area would license Tracy because of his background. Shortly after licensing Tracy, the elderly pastor passed away and left the church to Tracy. Tracy was ordained by another pastor and immediately took over the role of senior pastor for the church. We formed our outreach ministry (Tracy and Sunshine Gantt Ministries) and began doing outreach for the homeless and poverty-stricken in our area. During one of my husband’s first few sermons, we had two homeless people attend our service. We drove around Pickens County SC and quickly realized that Pickens County didn’t have a homeless shelter. We allowed them to stay inside of our church. Unfortunately, we could no longer do that because our church was not up to code for a residence. That’s when God spoke to Tracy and said, “Build one!” For several years, we planned and researched opening a homeless shelter. We formed a team of people from the community. We found a building that would become the home for our shelter. People in the community (near this building) approached the owner stating that they didn’t want a homeless shelter near them. The owner decided not to rent the building to us. We were crushed, but didn’t give up. We had a longtime family friend who owned several properties. one of those properties was a very large industrial sized building. However, the building needed a lot of work. We located a well-known architect who donated drawing the layout for our shelter. That was our first step. We then located a well-known construction company who was also willing to donate their management services for the project. That’s when God really stepped in! The project took off! We had corporations (large and small), churches, the community, etc coming together to pour into this project. It took us two years to renovate our building; which was over 6,000 square feet. We got our certificate of occupancy on a Friday in March of 2020. This was during the Covid-19 pandemic. That following Monday, after receiving our certificate of occupancy, the Government shut everything down (due to Covid). We contacted our State Governor and were declared an essential business. We were approved to open our doors to the homeless community on April 4, 2020!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We began outreach ministry in 2015, by Founding Tracy and Sunshine Gantt Ministries. We provide assistance to the homeless and poverty-stricken. We also began hosting back-to-school bashes in 2016. We began very small with only a few backpacks with supplies. The City of Easley SC caught wind of what we were doing and decided to partner with us. The event grew tremendously and became an annual highlighted event of the entire county! We had free food, a live DJ, games, rides, water slides, vendors, etc all free to the community. We distributed over 1,000 backpacks with supplies annually. We had thousands of people in attendance each year. We also distributed clothing and food to the homeless and poverty-stricken. We finally realized that the homeless population in our community had nowhere to go to seek shelter. We decided to change that. We were already providing food and clothing to the homeless, so we decided to open a place to house them as well. On April 4, 2020, we opened the first and only homeless shelter for Pickens County SC (called Pickens County Shelter of Hope). Throughout the years of doing outreach, we received a ton of local and national media coverage, support from celebrities/well-known people and commending letters from Government officials. We are also recipients of The Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We quickly learned that people are visual. The saying, ‘actions speak louder than words’ is very true. While we were in the planning stages of opening our homeless shelter, we had many people who were skeptical. We had people who doubted that we were really opening a homeless shelter. Many people before us “spoke” about opening a homeless shelter in our area, but never followed through with it. We were being placed in the same category as those people. Once the renovations started on our building, we stayed on social media updating the world of our progress. The world was able to see the progress step-by-step from beginning to end. They were able to witness the pain, the struggles and the triumphs of each step. They witnessed us not giving up. That made people want to support us. Then once the doors opened, we continued to show the success stories of our residents and keep everyone updated. That helped build our reputation even more. As we stated, people are visual. They like to see actions versus just hearing talk. We’re frugal. We know how to accomplish a lot with a little. People see that we are good stewards with what we’re given; while helping hundreds to thousands of people a year.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Sunshine speaking: I hold many titles within our organization/business. One of those titles is Chief Financial Officer. I am a go-getter and I don’t let the word no stop me! Every day I spent hours researching various grants and applied. I contacted businesses about becoming a corporate sponsor. We spoke at local churches and events. Sadly, my health began to decline. I was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, some other health issues and was hospitalized several times within a few months. I had to seek some help with acquiring funding. Our homeless shelter is actually an entity under our 501c3 nonprofit organization, so that was an advantage to obtaining capital.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tsgministries.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pickenscountyshelterofhope/

Image Credits
Tracy and Sunshine Gantt Ministries Jeremiah Drummond