What defines a life of generosity? For Tim Harris, it has never been measured in dollars, but in character, service, and the people whose lives are changed by showing up for others.

Story By Sarah Harris Quillen

Appeared in Cityview Magazine, Vol. 42, Issue 5 (September/October 2026)

When I think about generosity, I don’t picture a check or a gala or a name on a building. I picture my dad.

Long before Knoxville Wholesale Furniture became a household name in East Tennessee, Tim Harris was giving. We didn’t have much when I was growing up — but what my dad lacked in resources, he made up for in heart. He gave his time. He gave his attention. He showed up — for neighbors, for strangers, for anyone who needed a hand. My mom, Robin, was right beside him. In our house, giving wasn’t something you did when you had extra. It was simply who you were.

That’s the man who raised me, and it’s why I wanted to write this story — because watching him taught me that a giving heart doesn’t wait for a big bank account.

As Knoxville Wholesale Furniture grew and success came, my parents never forgot where they started. If anything, those lean years became the compass for their generosity. When they choose an organization to support, they look for the same things they lived by back then: strong morals and ethics, people who give of their time and not just their money, and work that makes a real, lasting difference — not a moment of charity, but a legacy of change.

Dad will tell you the company runs on four principles: Christian values found in the Bible, love of country, love of its employees and community, and a can-do winning attitude. He came by that last one honestly — he coached football at Farragut High School before he ever sold a sofa, and he’ll tell you he never really stopped coaching. But those four principles are more than a business philosophy. They’re a map of his giving.

A few of the organizations he supports tell that story better than I ever could.

Sometimes generosity is born from abundance. Sometimes it is born from heartbreak.

Ryan Christian Knauss grew up in Corryton, in the hills just northeast of Knoxville, playing soldier with his older brother Tyler long before he ever wore a uniform. At Gibbs High School, he threw himself into JROTC with the kind of discipline that turns a dream into a plan, earning Best Cadet of the Year honors in 2016 and enlisting in the United States Army during his senior year. He wanted, in his own words, to be “boots on the ground.”

He became exactly that. Airborne School. The 82nd Airborne Division. A nine-month deployment to Afghanistan as a gunner. Then selection into the Army’s elite Psychological Operations community — a remarkable achievement for a soldier so young. In August 2021, Ryan volunteered to return to Afghanistan to help with the humanitarian evacuation of Kabul. On August 26, at Abbey Gate outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, a suicide bombing took his life along with twelve fellow American service members and more than 170 civilians. Staff Sergeant Ryan Christian Knauss was 23 years old. He was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Most parents would understandably retreat into grief. His mother, Paula Knauss-Selph, chose purpose.

Through the Respect and Remember Foundation — R2Factor, as it’s known — Paula has dedicated herself to making sure her son’s legacy lives on in the lives of young people who share his calling. The foundation awards the Army SSG Ryan Christian Knauss Merit Scholarship to graduating JROTC cadets, beginning at Ryan’s own Gibbs High School and now expanding into schools far beyond Tennessee. It encourages active-duty service members — including sponsoring the annual TPT 9000 memorial workout held in Ryan’s honor at Fort Bragg — and partners with organizations serving veterans and the families of the fallen. The foundation’s name is its mission: respect all who have committed to serve, and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

It is easy to understand why this kind of person appeals to my dad’s heart. Paula isn’t writing checks from a distance — she is giving of herself, showing up at scholarship presentations and memorial runs, turning the worst day of her life into hope for someone else’s child. Her foundation is built on exactly the things my parents look for: unshakeable character, hands-on commitment, and work that will outlast all of us. A scholarship changes the direction of a young cadet’s life. A mother’s love, carried forward this way, changes a community. Knoxville Wholesale Furniture is proud to stand among the foundation’s top sponsors — but for my dad, it has never been about the sponsorship. It’s about Paula, and Ryan, and the belief that the best way to honor a giving heart is to give alongside it.

That same spirit lives in Sherrie Battle McGhee.

By a heartbreaking coincidence, her son was also named Ryan. Cpl. Ryan C. McGhee was a 21-year-old Army Ranger with the storied 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment — a young man who, like so many of his generation, was moved by September 11th to serve. He called his mother from Iraq on Mother’s Day 2009 to wish her a happy birthday — she would turn 50 the next day. Three days later, on his fourth deployment, Ryan was killed by enemy fire. He rests today in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery.

Sherrie will tell you she walked in a fog for years. What pulled her out was faith — and other mothers who carried the same wound. “God put the Gold Star Mothers in my path,” she has said. So she threw herself into service, determined that her son — and everyone else’s son — would never be forgotten. Today she serves as chaplain of the American Gold Star Mothers’ Tennessee department, ministering to families in their darkest hours. She led the effort to name a memorial bridge in Ryan’s honor, and she shows up — at memorial ceremonies, veterans’ events, and quiet moments no camera ever sees. What keeps her going is something she came to hear in Ryan’s own voice: “Mother, I did not die for you not to enjoy life. We died for you to be free. Don’t make my sacrifice worthless.”

Sherrie’s generosity cannot be measured in dollars. It is measured in hugs given to grieving mothers, in conversations between families who understand one another’s pain, and in the quiet promise that no one has to carry their burden alone.

This is exactly the kind of giving my dad admires most — not the kind that writes a check and looks away, but the kind that costs something. That’s why he supports the American Gold Star Mothers: an organization whose members give the one thing money can’t buy — their presence. Women like Sherrie are the reason his support goes there, and for a man who built everything he has on showing up — for his family, his employees, his community — standing behind these mothers isn’t charity. It’s kinship.

Sometimes it’s giving your time. Sometimes it’s giving your heart. Sometimes it’s simply showing up.

In our house, giving wasn’t something you did when you had extra. It was simply who you were.

As I reflect on the people who shaped my understanding of generosity, my thoughts always return home. Growing up, I never realized the scope of what my father was doing, because he never talked about it. Looking back now, I understand that I had a front-row seat to a lifetime of servant leadership.

Through our family business, my dad has quietly directed more than $8 million to charitable causes over the past fifteen years — to ministries like Samaritan’s Purse and churches across East Tennessee, to organizations feeding and sheltering our neighbors like KARM and Second Harvest, to Helping Mamas, to veterans and first responders, and to high school athletic programs giving young people the same shot football once gave him. But the number was never the point. Kimberly Glenn of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office puts it better than I could: “Their donations to our officer assistance fund have helped numerous employees during some of their darkest days, including Fallen Officer Tucker Blakely’s widow.”

And what I’ve admired most has happened where no check register could record it. For thirty-four years, I’ve watched my dad invest in people. I’ve seen him help employees through illness, loss, and hardship. I’ve seen him encourage people who had lost confidence in themselves, and quietly meet needs no one else knew existed. He has always believed in second chances — he reminds us that none of us would be where we are if God had given up on us. So he has chosen, again and again, to see potential where others saw failure. Money can meet a need for a season. Believing in someone can change the course of a lifetime.

His generosity didn’t begin with him. My grandfather has spent his life preaching the Gospel — at 95, he’s still at it in Franklin, Tennessee — and my grandmother devoted herself to home and family. They taught their children that success is measured not by what we accumulate, but by how faithfully we love God and care for others. My grandparents planted those seeds in my father, and he planted them in me. Now, as a wife and stepmother, I find myself carrying his lessons into my own home — his patience, his giving spirit, the faith he modeled every day. Looking across three generations, I’m reminded that great people are often shaped by great parents. That may be the greatest legacy of all.

When I think about East Tennessee today, I don’t just think about the mountains that surround us. I think about the people. I think about mothers like Paula and Sherrie, who transformed grief into hope. I think about volunteers who serve without applause, and neighbors who quietly step in when someone is hurting. And I think about my dad, who built one of this region’s great businesses and never once forgot the man he was before it.

That is the East Tennessee I know. And that is the East Tennessee I hope we never lose.

Because generosity isn’t measured by the size of a donation or the recognition that follows. It is measured by the willingness to put others before ourselves — to offer a second chance, to open our homes, to give our time, and to leave every person we encounter a little better than we found them.

If my childhood in Strawberry Plains taught me anything, it is this: the greatest wealth we will ever possess isn’t found in what we keep. It’s found in what we give away.

And that, to me, is the true gift of giving. ◆