Brad Paisley and his wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, set out to help the community with their free Nashville grocery store in March 2020, but little did they know the request or impact they'd have on the community.
During a recent appearance on The View, the country hitmaker, 48, reflected on the opening of The Store, which occurred earlier than expected due to the tornado in Nashville and right before the COVID-19 pandemic kicked into high gear in the United States. "That's another thing about this pandemic that's an unexpected sort of blessing," he said during the interview, admitting that The Store was "hit with this crazy demand." "We expected to do about 300,000 meals last year and we ended up doing a million in January. We weren't even a year old yet. I don't know how we did it, but you rise to it in a time like this, I think."
Created with Paisley's Belmont University in Nashville, the concept of the store was based on the Unity Shoppe in Santa Barbara, California. It gives customers "the dignity of choice," allowing them the opportunity to have a traditional shopping experience without a checkout at the end. "It's literally a program to get people back on their feet," Paisley explained.
Elsewhere in his appearance on The View, Paisley spoke about what it's meant for him to connect with fans via Zoom. "It's been really something unexpected as far as a blessing goes," he explained. "I really never expected... when this thing started, it really hit me like a ton of bricks that there would be very little way to connect with these folks. The next thing you know, here comes Zoom, here comes all of these FaceTime and the ways that we can jump onto communication calls with each other."
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