Melissa McWilliams of Conway, an employee of Community Action Program for Central Arkansas, said the determing factor in how many low-income families in Faulkner and Cleburne counties receive a holiday food box this year is the generosity of the public.
“Every year, what we do is, the number varies — it just depends on what we’re going to get from [U.S. Department of Agriculture] commodity foods. We can assist the first 250 families; the rest go on a waiting list,” said McWilliams, community program director.
And, there’s always a waiting list of 25 to 50 people, she said.
“The only way we could exceed it is if we were so blessed with donations that we could make up the boxes and make up for what was missing in the commodities,” she said. In Cleburne County last year, McWilliams said, the agency was able to fill 50 extra boxes because of community donations. “That was phenomenal,” she said.
“What we get really excited about — we partner with the Faulkner County Library and do a Bookworm Project,” McWilliams said.
While she was talking, Ruth Voss, former director of the library, was wrapping large boxes to look like gifts. Those will be placed at each school in Faulkner County and at the library branches to hold new and gently used donated books. McWilliams said books need to be in by Nov. 21 so volunteers can look through them to make sure they are age-appropriate.
During the holiday food-box distribution that will be held Wednesday at True Holiness Saints Center in Conway, “many tables of books” will be available for parents and grandparents to choose for their children or grandchildren, McWilliams said.
“For low-income families, buying a book is not top on their priority list, but low-income children have a right to own a book, too,” McWilliams said.
Voss, who retired from her job Dec. 31, 2012, said the Bookworm Project was started 22 or 23 years ago by Friends of the Faulkner County Library.
“The president of Friends said, ‘You know what we ought to do? I think we ought to give away books,’” Voss said.
From the beginning, the library partnered with CAPCA on the project, Voss said.
“We figured people who can’t afford to feed their child adequate food are likely not to be able to buy a book. … They can’t even think about that in terms of priorities,” Voss said.
Children from low-income families are often at risk for illiteracy, which leads to them dropping out of school and compounds the problem of finding a job, she said.
“That seemed to fit the whole mission,” she said of the book project. About 6,000 books are collected each year, she said.
“We have found through experience that elementary school people are the most responsive. Elementary schoolchildren are just angels; that’s what they are,” she said.
Voss said books for all age levels, including adults, are needed. The ones without covers or with torn pages will be recycled, and the remainder are sorted by “rough” grade level, boys, girls, infants.
McWilliams said any donations that are “extra” will be put in the boxes.
“We try to buy eggs; we like to have a couple of additional items,” she said. For example, one year a lot of baby wipes were donated, she said, so all the families with babies got those, too.
Some of the commodities are lacking, she said.
“They’re giving us 132 [packages of] black-eyed peas. To meet 250, we’ll go buy them if we don’t get them donated,” she said. “[The USDA] literally is going off what they have, and they have to distribute it across the state. They’re doing the best they can.”
Items needed to fill the Faulkner County boxes are 250 each of the following: cranberry sauce, dehydrated potatoes, canned pumpkin, mixed fruit, dried beans, stuffing mix and cake mix. Icing is appreciated but not on the official list, she said.
“Those are the priorities,” she said.
In Cleburne County, CAPCA needs an additional 150 stuffing mixes; gravy mixes; boxes of tea bags; and canned yams. Donations may be taken to the office at 305 W. Searcy St. in Heber Springs.
“That’s what we’re lacking to make up the holiday meal,” McWilliams said.
The food is needed by Friday in Cleburne County because distribution is Nov. 21.
“They do Thanksgiving, and we [in Faulkner County] do Christmas,” she said.
She said food needs to be at the Conway agency by Dec. 10. CAPCA in Conway is at 707 Robins St., Suite 118.
Also, after the holiday boxes are filled, donations can be used to fill the pantry for commodity food boxes that are given out each Thursday. That will be important when schools are out on Christmas break, she said, because kids are home and can’t get free and reduced-price meals at school during the break, and families can’t afford a lot of food.
“Our pantry is extremely bare, except for I went over to the Conway Junior High — Pam Ferguson (assistant principal) every year does this food drive for us — they had so much food it was just amazing,” McWilliams said.
She also picked up food at the Conway High School football game last week.
“It went fantastic. We didn’t get a ton because it was last-minute notification, but we received quite a bit of food and some financial donations as well,” McWilliams said. “These students are so giving; the staff is so giving.”
She said senior citizens make up a big portion of CAPCA’s clients, too.
“Arkansas ranks No. 1 in senior hunger, and that is not what we want to rank No 1 in,” McWilliams said. “They don’t have enough to make it through the month. The commodity box helps them along. We’re not trying to fill their pantry. We’re just trying to give them a little bit extra to make it to the end of the month till they get their benefits again.
“When [the pantry is] this low, we can only can give a couple of meals. We usually like to give five meals, … tuna, or we give them chicken, and we try to give them a fruit. … It’s very limited amounts of food we can give out when it gets this low.”
The deadline to apply for the Faulkner County holiday food boxes is Nov. 26.
“It is an income-based eligibility,” McWilliams said. She said the staff will mail letters to let people who applied know if they were approved or are on a waiting list.
For more information, contact Tiffany Caldwell of CAPCA at (501) 329-3891.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.