Nashville, TN – The Gospel Music Association recently honored Candy Christmas, founder of The Bridge Ministry, during the 2nd Annual GMA Honors during a lavish celebration held at Lipscomb University’s Allen Arena. The event celebrated those individuals and organizations that impact culture through their individual efforts.
Candy Christmas was recognized for her contribution in service to the Nashville, TN community through her organization, The Bridge Ministry.
Accolades from a diverse group including Governor Mike Huckabee, Reba McEntire and Journey’s Jonathan Cain honored Candy Christmas’ Bridge Ministry. The most poignant acknowledgment, however, came from formally homeless, Jeff Stultz, who said his life was changed when he met Candy under the Jefferson Street Bridge.
Began in November 2004, “The Bridge” was formed by Candy Christmas out of a desire to help feed and clothe the homeless of Nashville. Candy began taking huge pots of jambalaya down to the homeless living under the Jefferson Street bridge in downtown Nashville. After seeing that the need was far greater than just one hot meal a week, Candy began to collect clothing and non-perishable food items to pass out to her friends. She stored it all in her garage and friends volunteered to come over and fill grocery bags with food. The more people that began finding out about this ministry and caught the vision, the faster the ministry grew.
The Bridge is housed in a 20,000 square foot warehouse in Nashville, TN, that not only stores the food for the Tuesday evening services, but also acts as a local food bank for other area ministries. The Bridge Ministry also aids school children on assisted lunch programs by filling their backpacks with food on Friday afternoons so that they have food to eat over the weekend. There are 11,000 homeless in Nashville and Middle TN and of that number 4,000 are children.
The 2nd Annual GMA Honors were held on May 5, 2015 and is set to air on TBN’s JUCE TV on Friday, June 5th at 7pm PST
/ 10pm EST and Saturday, June 6th at 12pm PST / 3pm EST. The third-annual GMA Honors ceremony date has also been announced for May 10, 2016.
Along with Candy Christmas , the 2nd Annual GMA Honors recipients included the inimitable Bishop Paul S. Morton, Founding Bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International, Passion founded by Louie and Shelley Giglio and Porter’s Call founded by Al Andrews. In conjunction with the Honors, the GMA inducted BeBe and CeCe Winans, Mark Lowry, Roland Lundy and Twila Paris into the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
