Empowering the Masses: Tammy Johnson on Food Security and Community Transformation

In this Good God episode, Tammy Johnson—Executive Director and Founder of Empowering the Masses in South Dallas—shares her inspiring journey from childhood poverty to leading an organization that addresses food insecurity through its CommUNITY Market, offering nutritious and culturally appropriate food to those in need. 

Empowering the Masses provides career training and certification programs, equipping individuals to increase their earning potential and engage more deeply with their neighbors. Discover how faith, dignity, and practical support are transforming lives and entire communities in South Dallas.

Watch the video, here.

George (00:00):

Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and Public Life. I'm your host George Mason, and we are here today in another on location. Good God. To visit with Tammy Johnson, who is the executive director and the founder of an organization in South Dallas called Empowering the Masses. Tammy, thank you for hosting us and for allowing us to find out more about what you're up to.

Tammy (00:28):

Thank you for having me.

George (00:30):

Sure. So, empowering the masses is how old is an organization and tell us your origin story.

Tammy (00:38):

Uh, empowering the Masses is six years old. We just turned six years old on February 2nd. Uh, we were founded in 2018, but empowering the masses was born out of my own lived experiences. Uh, my sisters and I grew up, um, in poverty, not because my mom wanted us to is because we had no other option and she was sick, our entire youth. And so we were those kids who had to go to the food pantries or often didn't have food in the summertime, um, and things of that nature. And, um, somebody gave me a hand up. Um, when I was 14, I had the opportunity to go to work for an organization called Private Industry Council, and I was able to work and help my mom pay bills and feed my sisters and I and buy our clothing, um, and all of those things. But I do, I'm a big believer that nothing happens to you. It happens for you. And all of my lived experiences when I was growing up, I knew was meant for something and it was for us to found empowering the masses coming from a place of lived experience.

George (01:36):

So did you grow up in South Dallas?

Tammy (01:38):

My family grew up in South Dallas. Um, and we were in South Dallas for a time. And then, um, my mom got a voucher to get a house, and so we moved to Pleasant Grove. Okay. And so we lived, um, like the latter part of my years in Pleasant Grove.

George (01:51):

Now we're located here in this beautiful space, which is the community market. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> for empowering the masses. And it's on Samuel Boulevard right acros s from Samuel Park and the Tinesson, uh, area and all of that. And you have an office at the Martin Luther King Jr. Uh, community center. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But this is really where the work takes place for in terms of food distribution and the like. At the other office, you do, uh, employment counseling and things of that nature. Tell us about the differences between the locations and what you do.

Tammy (02:25):

So the difference in the both locations, we know that food insecurity is a symptom of something much bigger. I know that because again, my mom could not feed my sisters and I not again. 'cause she couldn't, she didn't want to. It's 'cause she couldn't work. Um, and so she was on public assistance, but oftentimes that public assistance didn't go the distance. Um, and so when we recognized, um, food insecurity as, as a big issue, we chose to, to found the food pantry. But as you talk to the neighbors that you serve and the community members, you realize it's not that they don't wanna take care of their families, it's just that they can't. And so I, um, was a college professor for a while, um, for the local community college, and I was writing my curriculums and things and I was like, okay, I know how to provide short term training that will lead to long-term results and we can utilize the food pantry as a way to recruit people into our career training programs.

Tammy (03:18):

And so we offer two career pathways. We offer phlebotomy and we offer community health worker training. Um, the phlebotomy training is 12 weeks long, and the community health worker training is 16 weeks now. Everybody's like, what is a community health worker and their assistance to social workers. And so they get a license from the state of Texas, the Department of State Health Services. Um, we also are able for our students when they do our phlebotomy training to be nationally certified. Um, and so this is a recruitment into the career training because nobody generally does not want to be able to feed their families. They just don't have the means to do so. And so we're not here to continuously be a handout. We are here to give people a hand up. Now not everybody that comes through the, the community market or the food pantry is gonna be a candidate for the the line, but if we can get enough people to be self-sustainable, then we're doing our job.

George (04:10):

Where do you get the food Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that you offer to neighbors who come in and are in need?

Tammy (04:16):

So we partner with North Texas Food Bank. We purchase food from some local, um, retailers. Um, we also have retail partners like Sam's Albertsons, Tom Thumb, Kroger, um, and we pick up from them six days a week. Those different retail partners. Um, and then we have some companies who donate and they get if they sponsor their items or on display throughout the market.

George (04:39):

Great. So when you think about what's happening in South Dallas, we've had a round table of organizations that are all trying to address food insecurity in South Dallas. Uh, how do you think about what you are doing in light of what others are doing and and and, and what the need is? Is it, um, is it making a dent? Is it, what's the long term? Is this gonna be necessary forever? Or do you see, uh, that the coordinated efforts of the different organizations trying to do this work could have a flywheel effect to change the, uh, food access in South Dallas? What's your vision for that?

Tammy (05:25):

I think that the Bible tells us that the poor will be with you always. And so I think what we're doing here at the community market is doing just what the Bible said. So this started in the Bible and when he told, told the people not to harvest your fields completely right. And so you, and what God did was give people a hand up and not a handout. He wanted people to be able to go and receive their food with dignity and respect and take care of their, their families. And so I think all of the, the efforts in the South Dallas area, especially those who are doing it from that perspective of God focus, are doing it in that space of not harvesting their fields completely and providing people with the opportunity to receive and take care of their families in a space that's dignified. You know? Right.

George (06:05):

Well, when you speak of dignified a space that's dignified, I have to say that looking around this place, uh, it has dignity all over it. There is a kind of orderliness and harmony and beauty that this space represents that you don't always see attached to, uh, social justice work. Uh, tell us about your sense of connection. What is it that, uh, you think is important about the way this is designed and what it communicates to people?

Tammy (06:45):

It communicates to people that you're not alone. And it's not, you don't have to be ashamed because you can't feed your family this month or this week. Um, people should have the ability to come and receive services just like God said in a dignified way. And so you get to come to the community market and get a basket and shop and go through and bag it up and take your food home with to your children or your family. And they don't, they're none the wiser that this month, mom or dad couldn't make ends meet or we didn't, we needed to pay for you to, to participate in this activity. And in order to do so, we couldn't provide groceries. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so you have the ability to come and shop, um, and it makes you happy and you smile. We get so much laughter and, and smiles and gratitude from the neighbors who come in, um, and shop. And that's the purpose of it being called a community market versus, um, a food pantry. There's some negative connotation attached to the word food pantry. Mm-Hmm.

George (07:37):

<affirmative>. I understand. So you mentioned the biblical idea of gleanings, uh, which is the idea as, as you said, that, that you'd leave part of your field unharvested and then allow people who cannot feed themselves to come and harvest actually that portion of the unharness harvested field. Uh, so that has a similar connotation to coming here and actually choosing food, uh, that has been excess food Mm-Hmm. Uh, in the market that is now shared in this way. Uh, a beautiful application, I think of biblical, uh, truths into our contemporary time. But I wanna go deeper with you about the faith-based aspect of this. Clearly you are conversant with biblical, uh, understanding. In fact, you even have a son named Josiah after King Josiah. And I'm

Tammy (08:30):

Married to a pastor

George (08:31):

And you're married to a pastor. Yeah. Okay. So I want to get into that a little bit because this program is called Good God. And we try to explore what is the faith motivation of people that are working in this space of, of people who are saying, I have to devote my life this way. Uh, because, uh, it's it's coming from a deep place of faith. Tell us about your sense of connection there.

Tammy (08:58):

Okay. Because God is good. Right. And like I said, my sisters and I didn't always have food. We didn't always have clothing. Um, and how, you know that God knew everything that was gonna happen for you before it happened. He knit you together when you're in your mother's womb. The church where we started, which is my husband's church, a small church over the bridge, uh, um, off of Dolphin Road, um, progressive Baptist Church. Um, I didn't know this until my husband was being installed as the pastor, but my grandmother who raised her children here in South Dallas, um, was a mother of 12. And at one point she was a single mother of 10 mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And she could not afford the church where my husband currently pastors, uh, got wind that my grandmother couldn't afford to, um, couldn't afford to feed her children for the, for Christmas that year.

Tammy (09:47):

And so the church that my husband was called to, um, the deacons pulled up with trucks and cars and they fed my dad Wow. At the, at the, you know, when he was 12 years old before I was even a twinkle in his eye. Um, and again, we didn't know that until we moved there for it to come back. All those years later, my husband, my husband was, um, my dad, when we got to the church, my dad was about what, 64 or so when we, uh, was called to the church. So like 50 years later, my husband was called to the church and we were waiting for the pastor to come and do the installation. So we were in the back and we didn't know the story. And they were like, somebody come up while we're waiting for the pastor for the installation. Tell us about our new first lady and pastor.

Tammy (10:33):

And my dad told that story and I was like, only God can orchestrate something like that. I was a child that was hungry. My hus, my dad was a man that was hungry who needed to be provided for by the church. And full circle that flash forward 30 something years later, his daughter is the first lady of the church that fed him, and then she's feeding that community. And then we outgrew that space and had to move here to feed even more people. Nothing ever happens to you. It happens for you. And God is such a good God that he reminds you every day of what you went through and your experiences. And if it didn't kill you, it made you stronger. And it's for you to go back and, and give back to the people and tell people, I know how you feel. I'm gonna be, you know, practice humility because you're the expert at your lived experience.

Tammy (11:20):

But I can identify nothing ever just happens by happenstance. And so the position of me being my husband's wife and being able to minister to people as the first lady with a lot of trauma in my past, but the trauma wasn't to break me. It was for me to be able to minister from a place of understanding. And so even to, to be able to serve food in a space that's dignified, it's because when I was a young girl and my mom had to go and get food, it wasn't always a dignified experience. And people didn't always talk to us kindly. And people didn't always treat us well because she just was a woman who was sick and she couldn't take care of herself. And she passed away at the age of 48. But she had those times where people didn't treat her with dignity. And so with God giving me the opportunity to do this work, people will be treated with dignity and respect no matter what. They don't owe us anything. Yeah.

George (12:07):

So you are really drawing, as you said on your life experience, and that makes it almost impossible for you not to see how it is driving your sense of mission. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in, in your vocation to, to do this sort of work. What would you say to people who are watching this or listening and they are relatively self satisfied? Have all their needs provided for, they have resources to, you know, go to their own grocery stores and to live their lives without, uh, turning them into this kind of service because their lived experiences, uh, more privileged, uh, and yet we're not going to be, uh, able to know one another and understand one another well until everyone has this sense of, uh, common cause for a community to have, uh, enough that everyone is provided for. What would you say to people about how they might examine their own lives if their story isn't the same as yours?

Tammy (13:16):

If their story isn't the same as mine? Examine yourself and ask yourself when you see somebody having to go and ask for a hand up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> or, or receive services. Are you putting yourself in a position of judgment? Are you putting yourself in a position of curiosity to figure out why are they in that position? Ah, good. And how can I assist? Wonderful. You know? Yeah. How can I assist? How can I not, um, say I just don't understand why people can't get a job. Right. But there's something called the working poor too. I may be working, but I still just cannot make the ends meet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so always come from a place of humility, but also come from a place of curiosity as to why, what's happening? And then how can I help?

George (13:54):

So how can people, uh, help in your work here without, uh, taking away from the self-reliance of people who are, you know, uh, building this work and who are doing it like yourself, uh, and, and the people that work as your staff. Uh, what would you say about people who are interested in supporting this work or participating with you in some way?

Tammy (14:18):

They can always reach out and, and find out ways of or what we need in those moments. Uh, when, when our neighbors come in and shop, they're not only there's, we also have, uh, different, uh, vendors in here during the week when our neighbors are shopping. Saturday is a drive through, so it's much more fast paced. But during the week when people are shopping, we have different vendors that come in that provide health screenings or information about insurance or how to sign up for snap benefits or helping them sign up with their snap navigation, things like that. Do you have resources that we can share with the neighbors and the communities, um, about services that they need? Um, volunteerism is always every Friday and Saturday, please. Okay. Um, <laugh>, we need your help. Um, but also you can become an ambassador of the work that we're doing. You know, tell people about it. You can always donate, you know? Right. But

George (15:07):

Terrific. So if people want to donate empowering the

Tammy (15:10):

Masses.org. Dot org, Uhhuh <affirmative>. Okay. Right at the top is the donation button, and you can choose to feed families or you can choose to, uh, provide funding for scholarships for the students who go through our workforce training.

George (15:22):

Wonderful. Tell me, as we think about the work you're doing and the way you connect with North Texas Food Bank and other, uh, volunteers and partners, uh, you're able to do a lot on site and in the community, uh, in, in terms of drawing on these local resources, uh, from a charitable perspective. But I would like to talk with you a little bit about public policy and how it affects Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, where we are with all of this, you've now become part of the coalition in South Dallas that is trying to examine how to change things structurally. And that involves, um, policy at the state level, say for instance, uh, also at the the local level. Uh, talk to us about the, uh, this aspect of it. What needs to change from a, uh, public policy standpoint that would, uh, strengthen your work and the flourishing of this community?

Tammy (16:25):

I think that we need more people that are actually boots on the ground lived experiences participating and asking and, and a part of the conversation. And which is while we train community health workers, because community health workers, like I said, our, um, community liaisons now as a non-profit organization, we can't go in and influence policy or, you know, talk in that, that particular kind of way. But we can train our community how, on how to advocate for themselves. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so it is the policy makers coming and talking to the actual community members before they make decisions in, put policies in place. Um, like I said, those community health workers are, are, are big advocate or big, big, um, key in in that world. In that, you know, for that part.

George (17:09):

I just wanna drill down on that just a little bit more because I know they work with social workers, but what exactly is that career path? What do they do with social workers and is that an end game, uh, vocation for them? Or do they progress beyond that into another field to go on and get a degree in social work? Or what? Tell us about, is it an access point to, uh, to this work?

Tammy (17:36):

It's, it's an access point to the work, but it's also a long term can they can, um, use that certification for long longevity because we have a lot of individuals who are even PhDs and MSWs and things of that nature. Coming back to get the community health workers certification, community health workers are licensed through the Department of State health services here in the state of Texas. We're one of 50 organizations in the state of Texas that can provide that licensure through our 160 hour curriculum. And then, um, they're work in the community, their boots on the ground piecing the community. So it could be an entry point or it could be a long, long-term, um, career. I think like the base pay for community health workers now coming out of school is like $23 an hour. Wow. Um, but there are most of the time, 99% of the time, people from the actual community that needs the services. And so when you talked about policy earlier, it teaches they're able to teach their communities how to change policy, what, how to be civically engaged, how to advocate for yourself, what questions to ask when you go to the doctor, things of that nature. They are the assistance and they take some of that pressure off of the social workers who are often, they have too many cases and they can't kind of weed through those cases. The average hospital, by hiring just two community health workers can save $3 million a year.

George (18:47):

Oh my goodness. And so it's interesting to me that you have community healthcare workers and phlebotomists Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, both of whom are, you know, in, in some sense about how to create greater health for people. What role does food play in creating a more healthy community?

Tammy (19:10):

If I don't have food, I can't think straight. I can't Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. If I'm not fed physically, I cannot move. I cannot think, I cannot work. I cannot be as healthy as I can be. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So if this is like, like on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the basic of the basic needs, I need to be able to eat. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, in order for me to be able to function. Right. And so, and it's not just regular food. It's like what type of food do I have access to? Is it culturally appropriate food? Ah, um, are there healthy food options that I can choose from? Is somebody educating me on like my sodium intake? Are we providing food that's, you know, right. For the people that we're serving. If they have renal issues, if they have liver issues, if they have, you know, all of those things. And so we ask all of those questions of our neighbors, you know, that's part of that intake form. What do you need? I know that you are taking this particular medication so you can't have grapefruit juice or you can't have tomato juice, you know. Great.

George (20:02):

So Tammy, this is a beautiful space, but I know that you have two locations and you'd like to consolidate these locations and expand here on Samuel Boulevard. Tell us what your needs are and what your dream is about, uh, this additional space.

Tammy (20:21):

Um, our dreams and our need and our goal and our prayer and our hope when we know it's gonna come to fruition. 'cause I wrote it down like you told me to <laugh>. Um, but the building next door is available and we would love to expand into that space. One because we need more storage space. We need more of a staging space. But also, um, our workforce training programs, especially our phlebotomy and our community health worker training programs, our US Department of Labor, pre-apprenticeship certified programs. And so I would like to hire more people from the community and, and train them as community health workers and have them onsite at the location next door doing intake and connecting our neighbors to the resources that they need, um, in the community. And if we are able to expand next door, we can house our community health workers that we've trained. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> from the community on site that speak the same language of the people that we serve. Not linguistically, but lived experiences on site to provide services in real time, um, to our neighbors. And that space next door would help us do that.

George (21:17):

And what do you need in order for that to happen?

Tammy (21:19):

We need funding <laugh>.

George (21:20):

And how much funding do you need?

Tammy (21:23):

1.6 million.

George (21:25):

$1.6 million. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that sounds like a drop in the bucket for somebody out there <laugh> who wants to see this transformational work continue and expand. Well, we'll pray with you to that end. Yes. I think you need to write that down too. I wrote it <laugh> so that someone will answer the call of God and help you in that, in that way.

Tammy (21:47):

Absolutely.

George (21:47):

Well, Tammy, we thank you for the time you've, you've given us to understand what you're up to here. I hope that you'll find, uh, lots of people who are contacting you as a result of this and want to come and help. Uh, but thank you also for being part of this larger coalition that is, uh, seeking to create, uh, a greater environment of prosperity and wellbeing in South Dallas and the larger Southern Dallas part of, uh, of our city. Uh, it's an exciting project and I'm glad we're all in it together and thank you for being with us on. Good God.

Tammy (21:52):

Thank you for having me.