“If you take care of your employees and your customers as if they were guests in your home, you'll always be successful.”

“I believe God kept me here for a reason, and that is to care of these people with special needs that can’t simply go into a department store and buy a pair of shoes. It is my greatest joy to help these people with something we take for granted every single day.”

“I wanted to do a small online business. I got one clothing rack and filled it, and that was going to be it… Very quickly one rack turned to two, and two to three, on and on, and the sales became majority in-person as opposed to online.”

“I've lived on the East Coast, and I’ve worked through hurricanes, tropical storms, floods, fires, and all kinds of natural disasters, and…there’s nothing like last year,” Robbie says. “There was no precedent to this…”

“Getting the historical marker was a big victory for us,” says Martha. “My whole life I had heard stories of how the Creeks escaped Davy Crockett and the Tennessee Militia. Now the story is there for all to see.

“I believe that we change lives every day, and in order to effectively change those lives, you’ve got to really meet people where they are with an open heart and an open mind.”

“I remember when we were kids, our neighbors used to go down to the Sheffield community center, which was a couple of streets over, to get free lunches, and we asked, ‘Mom, can we go with, can we go?’ She said ‘No, there are people who are more needy than y’all.’”

“My nature is problem-solving. I have a pretty good feel for math and science. It was just a natural for me to get into engineering.”

“We’re more involved with our grantees than a lot of other grantmaking organizations. “We want them to be successful and dream big.

“We could visually see how you could take somebody making minimum wage and put them through a nursing or welding program and…a high demand, high wage job was at the end of that program,” Stephenson says. “And that was the thing that really set me on fire to earn my degree and elevate myself to make a difference.”

“I felt like I was really making an impact in a way I never had before. I had found my calling.”

“I didn't know how to read a financial statement,” John says. “When they delivered the parts for Toyota, I didn’t have a service or parts manager at that time. I had one salesman and one mechanic…”

“I couldn’t do much. I couldn’t breathe well. My heart rate was really high. It made me weak and nauseous.”

“I have always wanted Sycamore Grove to be that welcoming place where someone feels comfortable to come in, talk, and get away from other things for a little while.”

“I wanted to get involved in something and be hands-off, so I started looking at franchises,” Chad says. “My brother-in-law said, ‘You ought to look at this company, Mosquito Authority.’”