The Pulaski County Special School District, through the organization Feeding Children Everywhere, is providing food for children who might otherwise go to bed hungry.
Many students in the district, which covers a 740-square-mile area, don’t have enough to eat.
“[Feeding Children Everywhere] made contact with us because Arkansas is one of the states with a high number of students and children who are hungry,” said Deborah Roush, executive director of communications for the school district.
The nonprofit organization, which is based in Orlando, Fla., sent six pallets of 100,000 nonperishable meals to the Pulaski County Special School District on Aug. 27 for distribution to its students who don’t receive proper nutrition at home.
Counselors at the district’s schools were consulted to determine which students needed the meals.
“Arrangements were made for the students to receive the meals to take home with them,” Roush said, adding that the district has a program that sends food home in backpacks with certain students for holidays and weekends.
“You cannot provide enough help for students who are hungry,” she said.
One in four children go home from school and don’t have another meal until they return to school the next day, Roush said.
“The need is always greater than the inventory, and this will allow us to help more families, and that will translate into helping the students,” said Sonya Whitfield, principal at Tolleson Elementary School in Jacksonville.
Fifty-one boxes, containing 48 nonperishable meals each, were delivered to schools in Jacksonville. The rest were distributed to the district’s remaining sites.
“I think it’s going to affect them greatly, and the families I’ve given them to have loved them,” said Kim Fields, home-school counselor at North Pulaski High School in Jacksonville. “It’s a meal in a bag, and it has all the nutrition that any adult or child would need.”
Fields said that many times students won’t ask for help, but they appreciate any help the school district gives them, especially when it comes to their nutrition.
Not all the students who receive the meals are taking them home, per se. Many of the children who receive the meals are considered homeless. There are 940 students classified as homeless in the school system, according to district officials.
“Our homeless rate has doubled this year,” said Brenda Bowles, the district’s assistant superintendent. “And those are self-identified. People are really struggling. A lot of our students don’t get three square meals a day.”
She added that homelessness is more than just living on the street, but it could mean doubling up with a relative or being temporarily displaced.
“You’d be surprised at the homeless rate of teenagers,” she said.
The district also has an Assisting People in Transition Center, at 708 E. Dixon Road in Little Rock, and another center will open in Jacksonville in October. The current center provides opportunities for people in transitional situations to become healthy and self-sufficient.
“It’s a haven where people in our district who are homeless can [receive assistance],” Bowles said.
The center provides after-school tutoring, mentoring, health care services, a computer lab, a parent center and food.
For more information, contact the Pulaski County Special School District at (501) 234-2038.
Staff writer Jeanni Brosius can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or jbrosius@arkansasonline.com.