Community Resource Center, Middle Tennessee'S Hygiene Hub

Our mission is to provide critical essential items to our most vulnerable Middle Tennessee neighbors, both during times of disaster and during seasons of ongoing need. Founded in 1985, the Community Resource Center (known locally at the CRC) began as a simple wish-list published in The Tennessean asking the community to donate basic household items for people in need. Since then, the CRC has become Nashville’s lead agency in times of crisis, and the nonprofit community’s go-to resource for ongoing essential product needs. More than 300 nonprofit agencies across 9 counties in Middle Tennessee rely on the CRC to provide thousands of hygiene and cleaning kits throughout the year. The CRC manages this from its own 5,000-square-foot warehouse and office space in Nashville at which product is received, stored, packaged and distributed. In 2020 and 2021, the CRC provided approximately $10 million in product to both our nonprofit partners and directly to clients, reaching over 1 Million people in our coverage area. The CRC is the official materials manager for the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management in Davidson County. From the 2010 Nashville flood to the 2020 tornados in Nashville through ongoing COVID-19 relief, the CRC has been able to immediately receive, store, inventory and redistribute donations for effective and efficient disaster relief and recovery. In a crisis, the CRC is able to expand its reach and secure additional warehouse space to manage the rapid influx of incoming donations. As a volunteer-driven agency, our ability to rally, organize and deploy volunteers allows us to scale up immediately to meet the needs of a community in crisis.