Tandy Lawrence Hammond was born and raised in Lake County.  She is the founding director of South Lake Community Ministries home of Buses n’ Backpacks, Brown Bags for Home, South Lake Aviation and Miles 4 Meals where they are dedicated to show compassion and share encouragement by serving their community one neighbor at a time.  Tandy is also the Executive Director of South Lake Aviation and a trusted partner of the Dream Initiative partnering with the Community Foundation of South Lake, Take Stock in Children, E3 Solutions, and Boys and Girls Club of Lake & Sumter County. She has inspired 4 other non-profits to serve Lake County Children in different locations helping more families with less duplication. Outside of Lake County she has coached 5 other non-profits who now serve children in their own area. In 2014 she was awarded Lake County League of City’s Humanitarian of the Year.

Tandy is a graduate of Leesburg High School & Pensacola State College. She made her first visit to 2^nd Harvest Food Bank in 1988 as a teenager tagging along with her grandmother. A desire to affect food insecurity in Lake County grew as she grew older. She spent 23 years working in the dental field and on the side started Buses n’ Backpacks serving 15 children at first but now they serve 500 from one end of our county to the other. In 2014 she left the dental field to spend more time in the field of non-profit work. Her husband is the founding senior pastor of The Church at South Lake and they have 2 children. Tandy continues today to find new ways to support families in Lake County and other non-profits efforts. For example she participates in the South Lake County food providers meeting with several other non-profits to set standards for best practices. They inspired a North Lake County food providers meeting that occurs monthly now.

Personally Tandy is dedicated to recovery, leveraging children out of poverty, and affecting how faith based groups engage with their neighbors.  She says that her plans are to continue connecting a neighbor that has something to share with a neighbor that has a need.