LITTLE ROCK — Thousands will grab a plate to feast on some of the 3,500 pounds of freshly-fried catfish and chicken on hand Friday night, all in the name of a tiny ministry in North Little Rock's inner city.
For 20 years, Brother Paul's Fish and Fowl Dinner has been a fall ritual for many North Little Rock residents of all colors, occupations and social status, drawing as many as 5,000 patrons annually. It takes hundreds of volunteers to dish out the food.
The benefit of all those eaten dinners translates into a year's worth of meals for the needy through the Friendly ChapelChurch of the Nazarene's soup kitchen.
One multitude eating to feed another, so to speak.
"That's crazy, isn't it?" said Paul Holderfield Jr., who like his late father, is called Brother. He said he's still amazed at the community's annual backing of the fish fry that supports the church's soup kitchen efforts begun by his father.
The 21st all-you-can-eat benefit dinner is 5-8 p.m. at Alltel Arena, its home since 2001, after previous years at Fisher's Armory. Tickets are $10 at the door or $8 in advance by calling (501) 371-0912.
Paul Holderfield Sr. was a former city firefighter who be-came known as "Brother Paul" after he founded the tiny church in a one-frame building in 1972 at 116 Pine St., east of Interstate 30, three years after he "changed his ways" to become a Christian, his son said.
The church's neighborhood, at that time, "was the worst crime area in North Little Rock," Holderfield said last week.
"Moving here was on purpose, to try to be a light where there was darkness," he added.
The fish fry was started in 1987 by the ministry's soup kitchen volunteers as a fundraiser for the struggling outreach. Its success has helped the church not only survive but grow.
The church gives some of the city's homeless a place to get back on their feet. It has a gymnasium for children's recreational activities, a dollar-or-less thrift shop and buys new clothes for 70-80 school-aged children every year.
Art Eastham, owner of Art's Marine and Sports Center in Levy, is credited with coming up with the original idea for a fish fry to help the elder Holderfield's soup kitchen.
"I would go to his place occasionally and have a bowl of soup with him," Eastham recalled last week of his friend, who died of a heart attack in 1998. "I was seeing him struggle. He was not sold on [a fish fry fundraiser], but I got 12 people together that I had a lot of confidence in. And people bought it."
Holderfield said his father was more than just a little apprehensive.
"Daddy said to Art Eastham,'Do you think it will work?' " he remembered. "Mr. Eastham asked him how much money he had in the bank and Daddy said $70. Mr. Eastham told him, 'Well, you don't have much to lose.'"
The success of the fish fry now will "finance the soup kitchen for the year," Holderfield said. The soup kitchen feeds 70-90 daily in the winter and an average of 250 daily in the summer when children are out of school, he said, topping out at times to about 400 in one day.
No one ever predicted how many would turn out to support the ministry or that the fish fry would last so long and grow so big.
"I think a lot of it [the growth] has to do with Paul Holderfield Jr.," said Eddie Powell, a former mayor and one of the original helpers Eastham called upon. "He gets people really excited todo things for the Lord. That's his purpose in life.
"You can tell by the number of people that not only help, but come to the event, how much people think of Paul Holderfield. It's amazing."
Eastham remembers that even the first fish fry so overwhelmed volunteers that they couldn't keep up.
"Brother Paul Sr. was very nervous and I was, too," Eastham said. "I told Brother Paul 'You go down this line and touch your hand on each person's shoulder and visit with them, then move to the next one.' Meaning you keep them busy until we can catch up.
"None of us ever dreamed this would become large enough to consider using a place like Alltel Arena to put it on."
The move to Alltel was a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Holderfield said, which preventedthem from using Fisher's Armory that year. A supporter, Dan Bartrell, knew arena board Chairman Bob Russell, who orchestrated the move.
"A new dimension was added when the fish fry moved to Alltel," said Mayor Patrick Hays, who volunteers and has only missed one fish fry in his 19 years as mayor. "It's a good time for the community and the community supports it.
"I'm sure a lot of other things are done for the good of our community, but I know they're the ones I'd place first on the list for reaching out to all colors and creeds," Hays added. "They don't see anything but a need down there."
While the Friendly Chapel Church has about 450 in attendance on an average Sunday, Holderfield said friends and church members have asked how long it can last until some development overtakes it.
The Clinton Presidential Library is right across the Arkansas River in Little Rock. Alltel Arena is well within view, as are the nearly completed Enclave at the Riverfront Apartments. Just past the arena is a revived downtown and the new Dickey-Stephens Park baseball stadium.
Holderfield said he's unfazed and wants to stay put, or at least be nearby.
"The Lord has impressed upon me that amid all the ball games and partying and restaurants down here now, there's a need to see the movement of God in the middle of all of that," Holderfield said. "We feel like we're supposed to stay here."
Arkansas, Pages 7, 11 on 10/29/2007