'The Well' builds community one person at a time

All the food was long gone before the official grand opening of The Well on January 17.

The Well is a multipurpose room meant to help the community from food giveaways to resume building and coined its name from ‘the well’ of resources this building will provide to Barnwell County residents.

While the community pantry and collaborative space was set to open at 11 a.m., the food giveaway started hours earlier when cars began to line up at the Jackson Street location.

Based on the volume of people who attended The Well on its first day, organizers were able to gauge how to proceed moving forward.

“We’ve learned a lot from this experience on how we can change and do better next time. I definitely see the need this is filling in the community,” said Jessica Bradshaw, member of the HEALing Partners coalition and contributing force in bringing The Well to fruition alongside creator and visionary, Pam McKnight.

“This is Pam McKnight’s brainchild, and I am honored that she asked me to come along and help her develop this,” said Bradshaw.

“God blessed me to link arms with Jessica, and Jessica brought in Dawn Snead and some other partners, and so together we were able to push it through,” said McKnight. “This is a dream come true.”

McKnight had an idea to create a facility like The Well all her life. She envisioned a hub of services that the community could access all under one roof.

“Pam, she’s been calling me for probably the last two years telling me about this vision,” said City of Barnwell Mayor Marcus Rivera at the grand opening.

After a few failed attempts to get her idea off the ground, McKnight turned to Pam Rush, Director of Axis I Center, when their old Jackson St. building was no longer in use.

“We have been thinking about this and dreaming about this for a year now, so we are so excited the day is finally here that we can have this grand opening and serve the people in Barnwell County to make sure their needs are met,” said Rush.

“You just can’t judge when God’s time is,” said Bradshaw of McKnight’s dream of bringing The Well to fruition.

McKnight serves as the project coordinator at Axis I Center and before that she ran an HIV program providing primary ambulatory care for nearly 15 years, making her no stranger to helping people and living by her grandfather’s motto, ‘charity begins at home.’

“I will always ask God to put me in a position where I can be impactful,” said McKnight, who hopes to provide a “full gamut of services” at The Well.

An affiliate of HEALing Partners and Save the Children, The Well was created to fill in the gaps of service in the community and provide things such as food, homework help, computer and printer access, application, and resume assistance, and how to build healthy habits.

“We want to think outside of the box and meet people where they are,” said McKnight. “We don't want to give a handout; we want to give a hand up.”

McKnight and team plan to help “people to the next level, whatever that might look like,” she said.

Throughout the upcoming year, The Well will be introducing new partnerships with FoodShare, Help Line, Esther’s Closet by Redefined Women, and the Clemson Mobile Health Clinic. Programs like audio engineering and podcast development alongside Life Sculpting Sessions will be developed as well.

“We're gonna create a station on YouTube, so we have someone to come in and actually teach podcasting so that people will learn and can come share their story– all things community, all things health, all things wellness. We wanna build a culture,” said McKnight.

To do things such as resume building, job searching, podcasting, or homework help, internet and computer access is needed. Linda Knapp of Knapp Law Firm in Barnwell secured donations through Just Serve to get ten computers and two printers for The Well.

Another aspect of The Well is a focus on tackling the lifelong impact of adverse childhood experiences known to HEALing Partners members as ACEs.

According to McKnight, the more ACEs an individual has the more apt they are to experience chronic illness and disease. This is something organizers of The Well are looking to tackle head on.

All involved are excited to see The Well help anyone who enters the doors.

“The work that you guys have done, Pam and Jessica, along with Save the Children and all the other partners, you all are vital to the success of our community. We’re just very thankful and blessed you are all a part of this community,” said Mayor Rivera. “I look forward to volunteering my time.”

“We’re looking forward to all that can come from The Well and the number of people we can serve,” said Rush.

The Well would not have been able to been established without the contribution of the following partners: Golden Harvest Food Bank, FoodShare Bamberg, Dollar General, Save the Children, SC Thrive, Just Serve (Barnwell), Dillons Provisions Co., Bethany Baptist Church, Healthy Blue, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, Barnwell County Help Line, Lowcountry AHEC, Barnwell First Steps, Clemson Mobile Health Clinic, Youth Advisory Council, Palmetto Innovation Center, Barnwell Volunteers, Barnwell County Sheriff’s Office, Redefined Women, and Spackl Marketing.