There are those among us who are born to give. Giving of their time, their money and their experience in order to help others. The people responsible for the founding of Brandt House (brandthouse.org) would fall into this category.
If you skipped over to their website already, you’d see this particular organization is based in Nebraska. Nebraska! What’s that have to do with Tega Cay, Fort Mill or even Charlotte for that matter? Hang in there, we’ll get to that, I promise.
Brandt House was founded a couple of years ago by Tia Berend and Bob Brandt. Bob is Tia’s dad and, along with his wife Peg, a proud parent of 12 children (3 biological and 9 adopted).
Over the years, Bob and Peg welcomed 30 additional children into their home at various points in time, most of them considered “troubled” by societal standards. According to Bob, “we wanted to be the last resort. We wanted the kids that had fallen through the cracks.”
After Bob and Peg moved to Florida, they continued to help families through their local church. At the time, Bob was helping a single mother of 4 who had been living out of her truck. She was attempting to find a place to live but found housing in south Florida to be unaffordable.
Although the Brandt House non-profit organization had not yet been founded, the Brandt’s bought a house in Nebraska and offered a rent to own agreement to the family. Accepting the offer, the mom and her family packed their bags and moved to the midwest. They are now working toward home ownership, a pretty drastic change from living out of their truck.
Throughout the process of assisting her father find a home for this single mother and her family, Tia began to wonder how they may be able to help other families in need. Every business or organization has an origin point, for Brandt House, this was theirs.
Shortly thereafter, Brandt House was officially founded as a 501C non-profit organization. Having helped 7 families find houses thus far, the organization’s dream is to “move families from surviving to thriving” while having a mission to “break the cycle of generational poverty.”
Although much of the good work they do happens in Nebraska, their good deeds have stretched into the Carolina’s as well. 
Melyssa Fleming (known as “Sunny” to her friends due to her happy disposition), is one of the adopted children of the Brandt’s. Having grown up in Nebraska, she now lives in Charlotte with her husband and 2 grown children. Although she may not be able to help place people in houses just yet, she’s doing her part locally to help those in need.
This past Thanksgiving, Sunny partnered with local realtors Joel and Whitney Hargett of Hargett Realty and Brian Strump of Live Active Charlotte to help local families in need.
Through financial assistance from the Brandt House and local donations, Sunny and her team of volunteers bought groceries for 25 families. Her efforts ensured these families had the supplies on hand to create a quintessential Thanksgiving dinner. Hot meals were delivered to an additional 5 families on Thanksgiving day. One of the families (a mom and her daughter) are currently living out of their car.
Far from done, she’s partnering with Olympic High School to help an additional 30 students in need over the holiday season.
Not limited to the holiday season, Sunny regularly volunteers at the Dilworth Soup Kitchen and provides assistance to the homeless. It’s obvious her upbringing made an indelible impression on her and she uses the love and compassion received from her parents to support those within our community.
In keeping with the Brandt House mission, Sunny shares the same dream of providing homeownership to local families in need. Through her partnership with Hargett Realty, she’s attempting to find an affordable property that could be considered as the next success story for the Brandt House. Higher Charlotte area property values and interest rates aren’t making this an easy prospect at the moment.
For now, Sunny is focused on small ways where she can make a big impact for those in need. After all, the difference between a family “surviving or thriving” can’t be discussed over the dinner table if there’s no dinner on the table.
Want to help?
Visit: brandthouse.org to donate
