BENTONVILLE -- The temperature in School District Superintendent Michael Poore's "office" was below freezing when he sat down to work Tuesday morning.
"It was an 8-degree wind chill at 9 a.m.," he said, while sitting at a table on the Administration Building's roof.
SnackPacks
The Samaritan Community Center expects to distribute 286,531 SnackPacks during the 2014-15 school year and through the summer, an estimated 343,847 pounds of food.
Source: SAMCC.org
Poore was fulfilling the promise he made to work from the roof for a day if the community donated enough food to fill his regular office. Those donations will go to the Samaritan Community Center's SnackPacks for Kids program, which serves more than 100 schools in Northwest Arkansas.
Bentonville schools collected the donations for the first two weeks of February.
Bags and boxes full of cereal, cheese and crackers, apple sauce, Ramen noodles and more took up the majority of Poore's office Tuesday. District officials couldn't put an exact value on the donations but estimated they were worth a few thousand dollars.
On top of that, the Bentonville Noon Rotary Club donated $3,000.
"That donation by itself would fill up the office," Poore said. "So we've actually filled the office twice. I'm really thrilled."
Poore, bundled in a Bentonville High School Tigers coat and hat, sat on the roof that covers the walkway to the building's main entrance. His only furniture consisted of a table and two chairs. He used a scissor lift as his elevator to and from the roof.
Poore made phone calls and checked email on his cellphone. Though school was out Tuesday because of the weather, there was plenty of school-related business to address, he said.
Vicki Lunsford, Poore's administrative assistant, was able to keep an eye on Poore from in her office. For fun, she took a photo of him sitting outside and sent it to his wife and his mother.
She worried about him, however.
"I told him it's slick and it's cold and you don't need to be out there," Lunsford said with a laugh.
It was the second time Poore has worked from the roof since he became Bentonville's superintendent in 2011. The first time was in December 2012, also to promote a food drive for SnackPacks.
This time, officials decided to hold off on the food drive so it didn't coincide with the holidays. That brought better results, Poore said.
SnackPacks each week provides a bag filled with eight to 10 snacks to children identified by schools as being at risk for hunger or food insecurity on weekends.
SnackPacks began in 2004 serving 300 children in three schools in Rogers and Bentonville. It now serves about 7,000 students in 113 schools in Benton, Washington, Madison and Carroll counties, according to the Samaritan Community Center's website.
Until this school year, SnackPacks served only elementary schools and Head Start programs. The center decided last fall to begin expanding to middle, junior high and high schools.
That move came in response to news the Arkansas Rice Depot, which had been sending food for distribution to the older children, would cut its donations to Northwest Arkansas because of budget cuts, said Bonnie Faitak, the center's Samaritan Kids coordinator.
"When Rice Depot left, we felt a real obligation to fulfill the need that existed," Faitak said.
Expansion of SnackPacks for Kids started with the Springdale School District's four middle schools in the fall. Since then, SnackPacks has added at least 14 middle, junior high and high schools to its service list, Faitak said. Bentonville High School is one of them.
"We've added about 1,500 kids since January. Those are kids we serve weekly," Faitak said. "We're very blessed with our community support. People understand the need and are happy to support us. We're very lucky."
Poore said he understands the Rice Depot's decision to pull out of Northwest Arkansas, but added, "There are so many children who need that support. It's really critical for their learning. So it makes me feel pretty good that so many people pitched in to try to make a difference."
NW News on 02/18/2015