About Us
KIR Ministries, Inc., is a 501(C)(3) Non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to low-income persons.
At KIR Ministries Inc., we believe everyone deserves access to healthy food.
Our pantry provides essential groceries for families and individuals experiencing food insecurity.
Food assistance
KIR Ministries Inc. in partnership with the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, is working hand in hand to help those experiencing food insecurities in our middle Georgia communities.
KIR Ministries, Inc. purchases food from the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank to distribute free of charge to our towns & the surrounding communities. Members of KIR Ministries, Inc. & volunteers give time at the food bank to prepare food bags to be distributed to the community.
Meet Fern Williams, Founder
Fern Williams was brought to America from Jamaica at seventeen by her grandmother, Evelyn Bennett Welcome, carrying a suitcase holding three pieces of clothes. When Evelyn prayed for Fern’s visa, she prayed to the one-way Creator. She didn’t pray for a permanent visa — just the stamp that says one way. And that’s what Fern got: a one-way ticket to a better life. Thirty years later, that faith built two businesses and a ministry. Fern lives by those words today: one way — and the one way is to serve.
In 1996, Fern founded Bless To The Max, Inc. in Decatur, Georgia — a licensed personal care home company caring for adults with mental health needs and seniors with disabilities — and in 2003 the ministry put down roots in Wilkinson County, where it serves the Gordon and McIntyre communities today. Out of that same heart for service grew KIR Ministries, Inc. — ‘Keeping It Real’ — feeding low-income families across middle Georgia through its monthly food pantry distributions.
In July 2026, Fern was honored as a Community Hero at the Red Hills Community Hero Awards in Red Hills, Jamaica, recognizing her years of service to the community.
▶ Watch Fern’s acceptance speech
Mother Lou Hardnett became Fern’s spiritual mother when Fern joined Bethel Freewill Baptist Church on Second Avenue in Decatur. Mother led the church’s missionary department, and it was through that missionary work that she became a minister. She was known for missionary service to the highest extent — winning missionary of the year among the churches for her true dedication to serving — and she fostered that same spirit in young ladies like Fern, who carries on her legacy. The two fostered a deep relationship and started the ministry together in 1996 — providing wheelchairs, holding a walkathon in Jamaica to educate individuals on Alzheimer’s and dementia, and serving wherever the need arose. Before there was ever a food pantry, they cooked food at the care home on Cogar Drive, packed it into Mother’s truck, and carried it to individuals living under the bridges in Atlanta, back in their DeKalb County days. When Fern moved to Wilkinson County, the ministry came with her. Though KIR Ministries, Inc. was incorporated later, the ministry has been serving since 1996.
Keeping It Real was begun by two ministers: Fern Williams and Mother Lou Hardnett.
Fern is also the author of Controlling Bipolar Nature’s Way, sharing her own journey toward natural wellness, and a former reviewer of the University of Georgia’s Foodservice Manual for Personal Care Home Providers.
Her mission has never changed: meet people where they are, feed them, and remind them they matter. Missionary work is in her gene pool — Fern is the offspring of the Bennett and Phillips families, missionaries serving their community in Red Hills, Jamaica. Her mother serves as a missionary there, and her grandmother Evelyn started a soup kitchen in Honduras. Her family affectionately calls her the Harriet Tubman of the family — she is always helping others out of their crises in life. She is joined in this ministry by her family and friends, without whom none of this would be possible.