SARAH GREEN hung by a thread on a daily basis. As a young mother of four children below the age of 11, she bore a lot on her shoulders. On a whim, Green moved about 90 miles from Dickson, Tennessee, to Lebanon in 2023 with only an old minivan. Graveyard shifts became routine as the mother tried to support her children. With Green possessing little extra time and next to no help, the house resembled chaos — torn furniture, stained sheets, and a lack of basic items were the norm.
Life seemed to teeter on the edge — until FAM Essentials showed up, bringing order and new hope.
Born from a heart of love, this group aids the helpless. That heart belongs to Jeff and Terry Hallums.
Jeff, a Wilson County native, works as a full-time real estate agent and has four grown children with Terry, who is a retired registered nurse with 30 years of experience under her belt. With their Faith and Actions Ministry, they enjoyed traveling internationally to bring medical relief and humanitarian aid to people in Latin America and Africa. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, those trips ceased for a season, and their souls longed to find another way to help those in need.
That opportunity came following a trip to their son’s church in the Tampa Bay area. During one service, church members highlighted a ministry called “New Life Warehouse,” a volunteer-led Christian organization that distributes furniture and household goods to families recovering from homelessness.
“As we were looking at it, I told my wife, ‘I don’t think we have anything like that in Wilson County,’” Jeff recalled. “So the next time we went to Tampa to visit, we went there and volunteered to find out more about their organization.”
Utilizing many of the lessons and advice that the New Life Warehouse group had to offer, the Hallumses began their own nonprofit a few months later, in December 2021, naming the organization “FAM Essentials.” A significant amount of assistance came from Greg, Jeff ’s brother; their son, Alex; and Dawn Grisham, the owner of Jeff ’s real estate company.
With a group of volunteers, the Hallumses now work to transport essential furniture and home goods to those in need. They receive physical donations from the community on Wednesdays and make deliveries on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month. The number of families they help grows yearly, with 2024 seeing nearly 300. That number included Green and her children. While working at the Farm Bureau Exposition Center, Green met Jeff, who had been hosting a benefit there for FAM Essentials at the time.
“I did research about FAM Essentials for my job, and discovered I could greatly utilize this program,” Green recalled.
FAM Essentials volunteers brought in beds, cabinets, a couch, and even invited a couple of youth groups to help clean her house and set everything up.
“They will forever stay powerful in my heart and will forever move me to stay positive and help others,” Green said. “The kindness they showed is just so foreign to me.”
Jeff said such blessings are the result of God leading them to this work.
“Once we get the deliveries done, the satisfaction of hearing a kid go, ‘I get to sleep on this tonight?’ and he’s been sleeping on the floor, and now he’s got a bed that he can sleep on and he’s 6 years old and he’s so excited, you think he won the lottery.“
The feeling is one he aims to keep spreading to all families in need across Lebanon. GN
Those wishing to learn more about the mission can visit the FAM Essentials website at https://www.famessentials.org, where people can learn how to receive help, donate, or volunteer.
