About Our Plans for The OUTside INN

After 10 years in an employment social enterprise in Troy, Tennessee, LeEllen Smith, Founder, and the board of directors of OUTsideIN announce plans to expand their mission of empowering women in recovery to include a residential program.

The OUTside INN will be a 4500 square ft. home in rural Obion County and will serve as a place where 6-8 women and their children can live in community and receive counseling, recovery support, training in life skills and sober parenting at no cost to them in a 1-2 year program.  They will learn a new way of life with an emphasis on intensive self-help and will have an opportunity to experience spiritual growth as a result of the focus put on Jesus Christ as the source of lasting healing in the face of all life’s struggles.

The timeline for this effort began when LeEllen and her husband, General Sessions Judge Jimmy Smith realized that for OUTsideIN to have the impact they believed it could have, safe housing would need to be added.  It was obvious to them both that their own home would be the perfect place for such a facility so ownership of the house they built and have occupied since 1991 was transferred to the 501(c)3 non-profit LeEllen founded in 2013.

Since then, they have been been researching similar programs and building the OUTsideIN travel gear brand (the original social enterprise) to a level that will be able to sustain the added jobs that will be created for women who come to the program to live in a Christ-centered recovery community where they will be supported by engaging in programming that will give them the tools to move forward with their lives. Perhaps one of the most exciting and unique aspects of their plans is that their program will be open to women who have children with them and those who are in the process of being reunited with their children.

With this announcement, it is the hope that other individuals and even churches with a desire to come alongside women in recovery will be inspired to get involved with their efforts.