Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance will hold its fourth annual Watermelon Crawl at Scott Melons and More in Scott from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.
This is an unusually active volunteerism opportunity for anyone who wants to experience the satisfaction of doing stoop labor with friends for a cause: feeding the hungry. Children are welcome. Everyone will help glean big, ripe melons that were too small when the field was first harvested, and so were left behind.
Last year, 100 volunteers gathered almost 42,000 pounds of ripe watermelons and loaded them into trucks for transport to food banks and pantries, shelters and soup kitchens.
And meanwhile, they played games. There are prizes to be won by entering the watermelon eating contests, relays and a melon crawl race. Games begin at 10:30 a.m.
The volunteers also will not go hungry: Performance Food Group will provide breakfast and lunch for volunteers, and Sam's Club will supply cold water.
The melon farm can be reached by taking Exit 7 off Interstate 440 and going south on U.S. 165 for 1.8 miles. Turn left onto Arkansas 391 (past the Hank's Fine Furniture warehouse). The field is 2 miles farther, on the right.
Although no one who shows up to help would be turned away, organizers ask that volunteers register by emailing mshope@arhungeralliance.org or cmcnally@arhungeralliance.org. Email is preferred, but if you can't email, call (501) 399-9999.
Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance is a nonprofit collaborative network of more than 400 hunger-relief organizations across Arkansas including the Arkansas Foodbank in Little Rock, the Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas in Jonesboro, Harvest Texarkana Regional Food Bank in Texarkana, Food Bank of North Central Arkansas in Norfork, Northwest Arkansas Food Bank in Bethel Heights and River Valley Regional Food Bank in Fort Smith. More information is at arhungeralliance.org.
ActiveStyle on 08/11/2014