Sandra Wilson and Jacqueline Atkins

[00:01] SANDRA WILSON: Good morning. My name is Sandra Wilson and I am 50 years old. Today's date is January 27, 2025. We're located in Selma, Alabama and my relationship to my partner is this is my pastor and my spiritual mama.

[00:20] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Good morning. My name is Pastor Jacqueline Atkins. I am 68 years old. Today's date is January the 27th. 2025. We're located in seven Alabama. My relationship to my spiritual daughter is my daughter in God. And.

[00:46] SANDRA WILSON: And today we'll be discussing our Outreach Ministry. It takes a village. Dallas County.

[00:54] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Daughter Sharon. I love to call her daughter Sharon because she's just like a Rosa Sharon because God had a purpose plan for us. And today we are going to live it all the way to the max. How did it takes a village of Dallas County began?

[01:14] SANDRA WILSON: I think first Pastor Atkins, I want to go into the origin of the term itself. It takes a village. It originated from an African proverb. The proverb states that a child's development is the responsibility of the entire community, not just the parents. Our mission statement is to provide our community with a better way to live by offering them the resources needed to achieve it. It Takes a Village, Dallas County began as an extension of another outreach ministry. I started it in Dallas County because there was such a need for it within our community. This is something my family and I have done for years. We serve individuals and families within the Dallas County area. We offer year-long services to our Dallas County children. We also offer quarterly workshops for all our community members. The thing I love about it takes a village, Dallas County, is our key word or our cross stick. And that word is deluge. And that word means flood overflow a great quantity. Our goal is to overflow our community with the resources they need that D is for developing, that e is for empowering. L is for lives, U is for utilizing. G is for God and education. Because those are our base is God and education. And with God and education, you can't help but to change and to grow.

[02:48] JACQUELINE ATKINS: What daughter, Sharon? I have another question.

[02:51] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[02:52] JACQUELINE ATKINS: What would you like it to Elevate to.

[02:56] SANDRA WILSON: Well, Pastor Atkins, you know, I would love to see us elevate to cover and serve more individuals. Eventually, I would also love to offer additional services to my community. My vision is to see the village extend out to serve additional counties in Alabama as well. So I would love to see us incorporate other counties such as Perry, Montgomery County, Birmingham to add on other villages.

[03:27] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Great. Now, do you feel you are reaching enough people with the service you offer?

[03:35] SANDRA WILSON: I believe we are reaching enough people. Each workshop we have a greater turnout compared to the previous ones. So every time we have our quarterly workshops, we see our numbers are growing. We see our outreach is growing. Our outreach is growing. We have an increased amount of volunteers. We also have an increased amount of individuals and families we serve. And that is our goal, to reach everyone that needs the services that we're offering. And of course, this year we'll be extending out a little bit more. We'll be offering more services to our community. Now, Pastor Atkins, I got a couple of questions for you. Yes, ma'am. How long have you been in just the ministry as a whole?

[04:19] JACQUELINE ATKINS: In the ministry as a whole, it's a purpose plan from God, from my mother's womb.

[04:25] SPEAKER C: Sorry, do you mind if I ask a question? Maybe for someone who isn't familiar, could you define what a ministry is? Or how do you define an outreach ministry?

[04:34] SANDRA WILSON: Outreach ministry, oh, outreach ministry in my definition, my personal definition of outreach ministry is what Jesus did. He was out in the community reaching the people. He would feed the people. Of course, he gave the people the word. He will heal the people and pray for the people and just offer the people the services that they needed. This ministry will cover the whole man. It'll cover the spiritual man, which is our soul. It'll cover the mental, which is our mental health and our mind. And it will also cover our. Our physical man. Oh.

[05:14] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Yep.

[05:15] SANDRA WILSON: Yep. This, it will also cover our physical man, you know, because that's important. We're trying to meet the needs of all the needs of our community, not just the spiritual side. We want to reach the spiritual, the mental and the physical side of the community as a whole is our goal. So that's why we offered such a wide range of services. And you could tell within our workshops, we cover different topics. We want to try to incorporate and give the people the resources towards career years. We want to cover and talk about life topics. We also want to encourage hobbies and crafts. So we just, like I said, we would take care of the whole man. It's the goal for it takes a village, Dallas County. All right. All right. I'm sorry, Pastor Atkins. Now, how long have you been within the ministry as a whole? Yes, ma'am.

[06:09] JACQUELINE ATKINS: In the ministry?

[06:10] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[06:10] JACQUELINE ATKINS: That got called me to. From my mother's womb to now, he chose me to lead his people. And I took the calling, even as a child. I always took care of everybody, took care of my parents, took care of them, which was something I always wanted to do. And as I grew up, he started using me to go all over anywhere I'd be to preach. To minister to his people because there always was a great need. And Jesus died that we have communication to help others live so they can make it to heaven. And I just love it. I love it.

[06:53] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[06:54] JACQUELINE ATKINS: I love Jesus.

[06:56] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am. And it shows. And I thank you. I thank you. I'm sorry. I'm taking a little break right now. I thank you for everything. You are a great mentor and what you have shown me and what you have developed and brought out in me, I appreciate you. I appreciate you for that so much. And I just want you to know that. Why did you join It Takes a Village, Dallas County Outreach Ministry?

[07:19] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Well, I saw something in a young lady that I'd never seen in people before. And her name is Jacqueline Atkins. And it was a purpose planned by God because of What I see you do, you all over with everybody. Your whole heart is into it. You feed the hungry. I even see you working with your hands, fixing people. Mechanical stuff. You do all kinds of classes and you post everything and you put your whole heart in it. You dedicated. And I've been always looking for somebody that loved a God like that. And when I saw you, I loved it. But it goes back further than that. What made me really love it was God had a purpose plan. All of these years, I didn't know you because you're from New York. But I was sitting up under your dad and your mama. My mom used to quilt for them. And in that place, I'm buying yard sale stuff and we're giving to the people, not knowing it was your dad and my mom. And then after your dad and mom, with my mom, all these years, God had a purpose plan waiting for us to carry it out to the world, to let the world know that he lives. And both of them, all three of them, I listened at your dad preach. Didn't know you was nowhere coming along, but my mom was there quilting for them. Imagine a quilt for $25. Your mama was behind for my mom, and I was happy to be there. And when I saw them, and then the purpose of planning about it was so deep that your mom and dad was the outreach to you, and my mom was the outreach and dad. To me. And my dad was great. Awesome, too. But as I sit there in that shed with him and watching him preach and all, not knowing God had a perfect plan for you and I to carry it on after they're gone. It was something. Your dad passed in 2019.

[09:41] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[09:42] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Your mom died maybe not even two months. Not even two months after 2019.

[09:48] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[09:48] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And my mom died November 2019. What a purpose plan that God had. And if they could come back here today, they would say, We so proud of y'all. We so proud of you. And we gonna do this. It takes a village going all the way, all the way to the end. And I'm grateful for you.

[10:09] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[10:10] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Grateful that I saw Jesus, something I've been looking for all these years. God sent a New Yorker all the way here that we got together and I saw so much in you. That's why I always say, keep going. I never saw none like you.

[10:27] SPEAKER C: Do you mind if I ask you guys some questions? Pastor Atkins, you were saying that Sandra has like a determination and she just does, just keeps going and giving. Where do you guys think that comes from?

[10:41] JACQUELINE ATKINS: It came from Jesus. It came, it was, he purposely called us in our mother's womb as Jeremiah said, I know you. He chose us from the beginning, from the foundation of the world, to do this ministry. And I'm so happy because we love doing it. We love seeing people getting healed. We love seeing people learn and I love how she taught the old peoples and She feed everybody. We could be just driving and she'll reach in her trunk and get a big, big bag out the back of the car and hand it to them.

[11:19] SANDRA WILSON: My blessing bag.

[11:20] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Her heart is in it. It's called her blessing bag and she have so much food in it. It make no difference. When you got your heart into something, it's totally different than you just do it. It's a call by God. I call back out.

[11:37] SPEAKER C: And what need do you see in the community?

[11:38] SANDRA WILSON: It's such a great need. It's such a great need. You have, and it's not just the children. It's the senior citizens, the disabled adults. You know, what I call the vulnerable. The ones that can't really defend or speak for themselves. They gotta have a voice. They gotta have someone to kind of take care of them and look after them. And like Pastor Atkins says, it's a purpose plan. God put us all here for purpose and reason, you know, and there's certain people that we are assigned to that we're supposed to take care and cover, and that's what we're gonna do. You know, I have children within my ministry. Some of them don't have mothers, and, of course, I have children in my ministry that don't have fathers. And some of them don't have positive role models. We are here to give these children positive role models. We're here to show this community love, you know, and we can look out on this world and where things are going, and it's needed, you know, and I'm not saying that we're going to be able to cover and reach everyone. That's impossible. But the ones we are able to cover and reach. We're going to, you know, we have to show them God's love. It's so many people out here in this world, they don't know God's love. They don't see it. And sometimes they don't even see it within his church. So we are out in a community, and this is what we're gonna do. This is our purpose plan, is to show these people God's love.

[13:17] SPEAKER C: Through service.

[13:18] SANDRA WILSON: Yeah, through service. We serve.

[13:22] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Yes.

[13:23] SANDRA WILSON: I am here to serve.

[13:24] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And what I love about her the most is we were blessed with this building and they don't have no lights, no nothing, and she get generators and we have, we working on the building now. Ah. And out of all this work she does, she is stopping, somebody house need working on and they'll fix it, she'll go fix it, she'll go. I never seen nobody like her a day in my life. But I know it have to be God because it's too much we focus on. We don't focus on what we can't do. We focus on who gonna get it done for us. And we know the service that God have placed her in this Village Ministry. So many people gonna come because they've been looking for somebody to love and love them. And, I mean, God is really doing some awesome things. We don't worry about we don't have the lights yet. She put a generator in there. She works. She's screwed, she do. She take care of everybody. I never seen nobody like this in this community and surrounding areas. As they see this and see the help that's being done, God gonna bless so many people to just come on board and just take it to where we want it to go because we believe God to do it because we are out here to just present Jesus and His love. And show people that they are loved and don't give up, no matter how they try. Don't give up.

[14:48] SANDRA WILSON: Amen. And I just want to thank God. I thank my volunteers. I have some faithful ladies. They come out every Workshop. They serve food, they serve the community. We volunteer. We have our giveaways. They come out, they don't complain. You know what I'm saying? So I just thank. Thank so thankful I have loyal people, you know, and then we're adding on more. Every Workshop, we have people coming up, want to volunteer and come out and see what we're trying to do. Once we get our building up and running and electricity, we want to offer day classes to some of the senior citizens and disabled adults that's at home during the day. Because, you know, a lot of them, we're out. The building is actually out in Sardis, Alabama, which is the rural outskirts of Selma. So we have a lot of people at home during the day with nowhere to go, no place, nothing to do. So we would love to incorporate and offer day program classes so they could come out and maybe learn a hobby. Maybe we could have Bible study and brunch is one of my ideas. They could come out, they can get a hot lunch or even just for socialization. You know, a lot of our senior citizens, they lack socialization, so they could come out, we can talk, we could sit for a couple hours and and, and that that need has been fulfilled. So that is the whole purpose of that building at the old Shiloh School in Sardis, Alabama. Once we get that up and running, it'll be to service the community and offer the community a lot of the resources that Selma has that Sardis does not currently have. We have a lot of residents leaving Sardis, driving all the way to Selma when we could just have something out there for them.

[16:34] SPEAKER C: Do you have any inspirations or people who you modeled your work after?

[16:39] SANDRA WILSON: You know, my parents. My parents passed. Everybody knows those were my roots. You know, my parents were my roots. My parents are the ones that instilled God within us from childhood. So those are my inspirations. Pastor Atkins is my inspiration. Anyone that's out here that is truly showing what God wants us to show are my Inspirations. Because I had this conversation with another young lady the other day, and a lot of us don't understand growing up in church. We have religion. We don't have relationship. You have to have a relationship with God. And it's going to show. It's going to show in how you act and interact with, with God's people. You know, it's all right to sit. We're gonna sit. We're gonna read the Bible. We're gonna study. But you got to show that. You have to show it in the way you live, you know, because at the end of the day, that's what's gonna count. It has to be shown. You know, like I tell a lot of people, love it.

[17:46] JACQUELINE ATKINS: If.

[17:47] SANDRA WILSON: If love is just a word you're gonna tell me, I don't want to hear it. I need to see the action behind it. Where is the action behind the word?

[17:55] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Amen.

[17:56] SANDRA WILSON: And how can you be in God and not love? Love is charity. It's love, not charity.

[18:02] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Yes, it is.

[18:03] SANDRA WILSON: Love is charity. You know, so this is what we're doing. We're showing love and charity to our community, and our community shows love and charity to us. This is, I have so many of my neighbors come out and tell me, oh, we've been waiting for this. We've been wondering. We've been waiting for so. For so long, for years, you know, in order for us to have something available within our community in order to be able to come out to do, to interact with, you know, I'm telling you, if it's God's will, it's God's bill. He's gonna bring you to it, and he's going to bring you through it. He's gonna provide. He's gonna send a provision. They gave me a whole building. I was not expecting that. They gave it to me.

[18:56] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Well, I can say, I can say, we thank God for the Sardis Community Center, a loving pastor, Pastor John Goin's. I send a shout out to them and his lovely wife and Daddy. Commissioner of the town. And even though everything was tore up from the floor up, they allowed us to come in there and get a building to work in so when it all get fixed up, because so many people stole so much stuff from out there. But we're not worried about that. When we do Alabama, we know God gonna do the rest. We just thank God for the building and the love that they have shown for us. They have giveaway food banks every first of the month there. And it's a non-profit. Pastor Goin's and his lovely wife and family have shown great love to us. Like I said, I can't say enough about Commissioner Town and all. They gave us, they saw us. We went to them and they come up with this plan that they fixing the place up and gave us a building that we get it fixed up. They're gonna put the lights in it and different stuff when the funds come through, but we know. For a fact that God put us there in that place for the people can have somewhere else to go because the more the merrier. And it's a school that been ran by all our children been went to some of them. And so we want to see that Community Center, Sardis Community Center, going strong. That's the building you have now.

[20:34] SANDRA WILSON: That's the building we have now.

[20:35] JACQUELINE ATKINS: We're out there in that building. And we got a building within a building 'cause they got the building where everybody else come and do stuff in. But they've given us one of the building out of the school because it's a big school. It was a school where everybody was going to all the children and everybody. So it's down with nothing going. So we got a building for one of the class building that they had. And we working it. We're not worrying about what's not being done and the lights and all. We doing what we doing in the inside. And when you see from where we coming, from all that faithful work and labor, all these beautiful people God had put in our state. And the more people hear about it, the more they come. They come and donate clothes because we give away clothes. We want to have it fixed so people out, we can give them clothes, food. We doing canned goods, we doing drives, and we coming out of our pockets real deep. We don't just chunk the change that we doing it. Every one of the faithful, lovely ladies that on our committees. We can't say enough about them. You name them. And everybody just worked together. And we made sure. I told them one leader, God and our leader after God is daughter Sharon We don't have all these. I say you say we act in accordance. As God lead her, we jump on and do what we need to do together. And that's what's keeping us together. And more and more people coming because I've never seen nobody like you in my life. And I'm just glad to meet you.

[22:14] SANDRA WILSON: I'm glad to meet you.

[22:15] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And I'm glad for Sardis Community. I've never seen nothing like it. It's a miracle.

[22:19] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am. But once we get up and running as well, we'll offer the day classes. We'll also have a food pantry, a clothing closet, and also toiletries. Available to the community if they need it. So we're working on collecting canned goods and toiletries as well to get that stocked and supplied. And of course, we already have an abundance of donation of clothes and some housewares and even some items for like babies, but that'll be part of the plan. And then of course, as we grow and obtain more resources, we'll be adding on additional services.

[22:59] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And as the people see it, and this is one thing I love about this ministry. It was before my time, and it's a family thing. They did it all amongst themselves all their life. They did this. And the Lord just put in to meet the right one, me, because I love to push. I told her, I can't lead her, but I can push her, because God's ministry already was in her. When we met. It don't make no difference about your age. It don't make no difference about your size. What God got in you is different from what he got in me. And I can't lead you, but I'm going to push you all the way to the end. And we dedicated, we dedicated ourselves to be committed to this ministry of God all the way to the end. So in a few years, it's going to be awesome.

[23:48] SANDRA WILSON: Oh, yes, ma'am. You know what I love? I love how God will take your life and everything that you have done and acquired over your life. He will use it for his glory. All of my experience within my real estate, my customer service, my health care, I'm utilizing now within my Outreach Ministry. It was like a foundation, and we just don't realize how God throughout our lives are preparing us. To where he, he wants to, to take us. We're in preparation.

[24:22] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Yes.

[24:23] SANDRA WILSON: And I utilize all them skills because they like, how you run? How do you, I do my paperwork. I run it like a business when I was in real estate. Because as a realtor, it's almost kind of like you're self-employed it's, you know, you got to keep your paperwork, have your files, have everything in order. Of course, if you're working, call center, customer service, it's all customer service. You're dealing with people. Even within Health Care is customer service. Your patients are your customers. So you have to know how to interact with everyone. So, like I said, I just love how all those skills I've acquired over the years within my work career, I'm now utilizing from Outreach Ministry.

[25:06] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And I like to say my dad and my mom is my heroes. They was tough. And there was some bad, good stuff. Out of the bad, I learned the good. I took care of my parents. When I was six years old, I was driving the truck, pickup truck, all the wood, doing all that good stuff. I took care of my mama and daddy and my aunts and uncles. And I was just like Elijah and Elisha. If I saw her die, I would have her scream. Because she always took care of the family. She did the wood. I hauled the wood. He hauled the wood. Put wood with my dad. Oh, wow. And I looked at them and I started taking care of them at six years old. And everything they did, I wanted to help, make sure I do it. So God equipped me for it. I was different. Out of 10 children, the baby of 10. But I was always treated like I was a duck. Because God gave me wisdom. And I can tell anybody, love your family, the good, the bad, even the ugly. God got them. If you can love and show perfect love, it don't make no difference who don't love you. You make sure you love them. That's the key to it. And I'm just so proud to be sitting here today because if it was up to life 20 years ago, I could have been gone. I've been in and out. But God showed me how he was going to bless me. I never thought I'd see this day. But today I'm sitting here debt free of people. Nobody in my system. Watch Mama died at 104 in my arms and got the scrunch of Elijah. And Elisha, she said, no one will never hurt you again. And I know that for a fact because know what? Know what nobody say or do to you, forgive the people. Forgive them. Jesus said, forgive them, for they know not what they do. If you can't forgive, you can't live in the kingdom. Just forgive them. Some of them don't even know you're mad with them. Just forgive them. Jesus is love. And I'm so glad he made me the new person that I am today. And I'm happy. And come to check us out out there. Check us out there. I got a way upside that. We got a way upside out there. Get to know me. I told, taught a Sandra about it. How God had led me. I said, get to know me. And by the time I told her that, she had put it out there and I was way outside so quick. And I'm gone like, God, I never saw anybody like this in my life. She remember everything she knows. Oh, God, this is your machine. And I've never seen nobody. And so you could pull us out there on the website. Get to know me. We all out there. And I got a little section out there with a letter u. You're your own problem. Nobody else is. Can't nobody stop you but yourself. Because if you get to talking to God, when you give God your problem, you don't even have a problem. Because he's feed the Raven, the birds. You don't see none of them with no stroke and heart attacks. All that stuff we go through. Them birds happen in the rain, snow, sleet and everything. And that's how I am today. I am happy in Jesus and I encourage everybody. That hears this and sees this, just remember Jesus loved you and you can be happy just like me. It took a pain to get the game, but it's all worth it.

[28:36] SPEAKER C: What does love and community mean to you? How do you define that? It seems like that's the words you guys used a lot in describing the work. You guys have about like 11 minutes.

[28:47] SANDRA WILSON: Love to me is like I said, the word is just a word. You got to show the action behind the word.

[28:56] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Show me.

[28:57] SANDRA WILSON: You have to show it to people. You know, how can I love you? And then if it's within my power to help you, I don't help you. You know, like I said, it has to be action behind love. We have to show love. And then sometimes love might just be like me giving you a positive word. It might not even be me handing you anything. Love is support and encouragement, uplifting. You know, sometimes that's what people need. They don't need, you know, something you may hand to them. They might just need that word from you just to keep. You never know when we are out and about in this world what other people are going through. Sometimes love is just a good morning. How are you? You know, or acknowledging maybe something that a person has done, you know, that's love. Or just telling them how proud you are them or how happy you are to see them, you know?

[29:59] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And also, you know, people speak love. They talk love. But love is action. It is. And it's agape love. If you don't have the love of Jesus, you have not love. And how can you say you love your brother and you have not seen him? And you didn't say you love God. You never seen him. But he's your brother and sister here. You don't like them. You say evil stuff about them. But one thing I can say about love. For God so loved this world that he gave his only begotten son. For whosoever, anybody, believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. But you can't serve two masters. And that's what the world is. Trying to do and say they have love. They say it, but they don't have it. You cannot have Jesus and the devil at the same time. You got to love one and hate the other one. So if you choose to serve God, you can do away with the other one. Because the love of Jesus come in and he makes you perfect. There's a scripture in the Bible said, be ye perfect for your father in heaven is perfect. Average person say you can't be perfect, which we can't. But once we get the perfect one in who died for us, who died for our sins on that Calvary cross, his name is Jesus. Because Jesus get on the inside where you say, you not gonna do nothing else for me. He would say, you can do it. I got you. I'm gonna give you the support that you need to get it done. Forgive them because I forgave them. And that don't mean nobody gonna walk all over you or you just got to do everything they want you to do. It simply mean go right and don't go left. Matthew, Luke and John. Jesus, the life of Jesus, God was going to destroy the world, but he gave us his son that through him we can have eternal life and we can love even our enemies if you got some. Because I don't look at him as enemy because he said I will make them feed you, be your food. I said, God, you make them feed me. I said, well, I don't have nothing to worry about. I said, don't y'all mess with them because they got to take care of me. Somebody said, you crazy, you got to be. I said, whoo. Gotta be. I said, just don't mess with them because they got, God said they're gonna feed me. So, hey, don't buy them. So when you get crazy about Jesus, you can go anywhere, anywhere. And don't put your trust in your family. They're human just like you. They got to be forgiven, too. And let this, they get to the stage where we at now, we just pray for them.

[32:26] SANDRA WILSON: We do. And Community is the, the people around us. And the one good thing I love, the one thing I love about. Our Outreach Ministry. There is no income limits or minimums. Anybody is welcome.

[32:40] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Yes.

[32:40] SANDRA WILSON: You're welcome to come and receive the services that we offer for the kids. You know, I have some parents that have decent, good paying jobs. Their children are welcome as well. For the year-round services we have for the kids, we have the report card rewards where once they get their report card, the parents will send me, like, a little snapshot. I normally take out a pizza and some cupcakes. We have the birthday club. When the child birthday comes around, we send them a gift card. So normally it's like a Walmart gift card where the parent could take them to the store to shop. We just had our Christmas sponsorship. We were able to sponsor over 40 individuals within our community with, well, holiday. You know, we want to put the proper term for everyone. And then we have our, of course, our back to school Supply giveaway. The one thing I say about it takes a village, Dallas County, we are concerned. About your children all year long, not just for the holidays and back to schools. A lot of organizations, that's the only time they see your children. You know, it's for when it's back to school or the holidays, which is fine, but I want to incorporate, well, which we have right now, a year-long program for the children. I would love to see more mentorship available to our children and to some of our parents as well. Some of our parents can really utilize mentors. Like I said, I want to see the positive role models within the community to reach out, to show that so the kids have a good foundation and the parents as well. So we don't gatekeep. All the resources that we know are available within our community, even the ones we don't offer, I put out there. So the community can utilize it. It's a lot of stuff that's out there that we don't even know about because it's like a secret. You know, you'll have a couple of people here and there. They'll tell their friend or their family, but they don't let everyone know, you know? So the key is to let everyone know what's available so they can utilize the resources.

[34:47] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And I like to speak on Pastor. I like to speak on pastors. You know, when somebody said they hear me say, I was a pastor. Oh, she got some money. Oh, never been that pastor. Never been that pastor. Would never take nothing from nobody. Even though I had nothing, they'll come hand you $100. What's $100? I'd spend out $100 in gas going where I'm going. That's no money. So I know in this season God gonna send peoples my way. They're gonna bless and anything I desire, I'm gonna get it in this season. But all of my life, you know, like I say, when people say, oh, I say, yeah, I've been a pastor all that time, but I've never been no pastor because my mama and them never took nothing from nobody. They farmed everywhere, had everything you could name on their land. They farmed it and gave it away to everybody. They were free. And I ended up in that too. I had to serve when the people come around to our home, bag up all that stuff, everything they had. So being a pastor is not like one of them getting it fifty thousand dollars, ten thousand. But not that one. They don't have nothing in my bank account. You can't find that. So because with this ministry here, we have sold out a lot and we do it because we love the community and we love everybody. But at the same time, God have a personally time set up for us. At the same time, he gonna do some blessing with us. People gonna just come out and start blessing us because of the fact, the favor that God got on us life, taking care of people's all of these years. And I'm so grateful for that. I just wanted to throw that out there because most time when people here say, oh, yeah, she's about she got some money later. Yeah, I'll check my bank account. You won't find out. I love Jesus and everything I need, he provides. He is our provider. And that's why we're going to, that's why this ministry is, because we put God before our needs.

[36:38] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am.

[36:39] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And this is why he gonna do that.

[36:40] SANDRA WILSON: And God is gonna send the help. I want to thank all the sponsors that have assisted us within the last two years of the ministry. I want to thank all our volunteers. You know, the volunteers that are faithful that come out and, you know, they just dedicate their time and their effort to come out just to assist us during our workshops and our giveaways. I want to give a shout out to our board members. Yep. Our volunteers are our queens. And then we have some kings as well because we have our men that come to work at, work at the building. So I want to thank them as well because it takes a village. It takes all of us. The village is not Sandra Wilson, the village is not Pastor Atkins, the village is all of us. It takes all of us, even our children during the workshop come out to volunteer and will serve some of the senior citizens within the community. So it takes all of us pulling together to make this work. And I want to give a special shout out to StoryCorps. I am so thankful for this opportunity. That you have presented to us, that you have presented to Selma. You know, you're putting a little town on the map. Not even Selma. You putting Sardis on the map with this. But I just want to thank you for coming out and giving us this time to speak about our Outreach Ministry and what we're trying to do within our community. I really appreciate it.

[38:05] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And daughter Sharon, don't let me miss this. It takes a village Ministry, your children. It's children I've never seen in my life. They orchestrated it. They bought it, they named it, and every one of them is biblical name. How many children do you have?

[38:20] SANDRA WILSON: I have five, and I want to thank all my children. And first of all, I want to thank God, because without God, this would not be possible.

[38:28] JACQUELINE ATKINS: Oh, my God. And they are all diligent. Without God. And they drawed it.

[38:34] SANDRA WILSON: My daughter, which is in Charlotte, she did our visual for our logo, and she's working on some additional stuff for us as well. But it's all of us. The village is everyone. And the village expands out past Sardis. The village is in Georgia, the village is in North Carolina, the village is in Virginia. And we just beginning.

[38:56] JACQUELINE ATKINS: And all of your family, the sisters and brothers everywhere, we just like to send out a shout out to them because one thing about them, we need each other.

[39:05] SANDRA WILSON: All right. And like I said, once again, I'm thankful. I'm so glad we came out today, Pastor Atkins. Thank you so much for coming out with me today. You might ride or die. Pastor, be ready.

[39:18] JACQUELINE ATKINS: I can't. God told me I can't lead you because you got something in you deeper than me. But I'm gonna push you all the way to the end.

[39:27] SANDRA WILSON: Yes, ma'am. Me and Pastor be all over the place. Pastor, I love you. I appreciate you so much.

[39:31] JACQUELINE ATKINS: I'll do 10 seconds of silence.

[39:34] SPEAKER C: So then we'll cut it.