Times strain Arkansas food banks

Holiday demands can crimp family meals

Pastor William Holloway said Wednesday at the Little Rock Compassion Center that more food is needed for the daily meals and holiday food boxes the center provides for needy people. “It goes fast,” he said.
Pastor William Holloway said Wednesday at the Little Rock Compassion Center that more food is needed for the daily meals and holiday food boxes the center provides for needy people. “It goes fast,” he said.

As families across the state sit down to enjoy Thanksgiving feasts today, many low-income Arkansans will be wondering where they'll find their next meal.

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Bryan Hilden, a participant in the Little Rock Compassion Center’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, carves a turkey at the center Wednesday afternoon.

Local food banks serve poor working families and individuals who might need help making it until their next paycheck or who may have had their hours cut.

Often during the holidays, the food banks run short on food and donations -- during the time when they are most needed.

Demand increases around this time of year for a few reasons.

With colder weather, utility bills are higher. With Christmas around the corner, families are trying to save enough for gifts for their children. In those cases, a family might make a trade-off -- spend less on groceries this month in order to buy a present or pay the bills.

"There's always a need for food because hunger happens every five hours. That's the hard part for everyone to wrap their head around. Every five to six hours, people are hungry," said Rhonda Sanders, chief executive officer of Arkansas Foodbank: United to Fight Hunger.

"A large population in our state isn't always able to provide those needs," Sanders said. "Sixty-one percent of our families we serve have worked in the last year. These aren't people not trying to work, not providing for their families. It's just, this time of year, there are higher heating bills, holiday expenses, people often have a higher need."

In Arkansas, hunger is a major issue. The state ranks first in severe hunger and overall hunger, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; first in senior hunger, according to the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger; and third in child hunger, according to Feeding America.

Arkansas Foodbank serves 33 of the state's 75 counties. Need is widespread, Sanders said.

"It all depends on how you measure need. Counties with the largest food insecurity are parts in the Delta. Chicot County is at 31 percent, Lee and Phillips counties are at 28 percent. Those are the highest in the state. They are the most impoverished areas of our state, where people struggle to have jobs, regular income, so they can take care of themselves daily," she said.

"Now, if you are talking broad numbers, then you are looking at the more populated counties of the state, where there's just sheer numbers of need that are there -- Pulaski County, Saline County," Sanders said.

For the past few years, the Little Rock Compassion Center has barely met the need for holiday food boxes it gives out just before Thanksgiving and Christmas, said William Holloway, the center's pastor.

He sent out a news release recently asking for donated food. The nonprofit serves about 800 meals on an average day, but that increases to about 1,000 on holidays.

"Someone can donate 10 chickens, and we can use those in one meal. It's nothing. It goes fast," Holloway said.

He sees more and more people who work what he calls "day labor" jobs and need help to fill in income gaps. Day laborers work for a factory or business for a day at a time and then must return each day to see whether there is work. Some days they are turned away.

"We have quite a bit of it around Little Rock," Holloway said. "I don't think the economy is as good as everyone is saying. It might be OK for people at the upper level, but people at the very bottom level are faced with inflation in food prices. A lot of them have been cut out of food stamps, too."

The Little Rock Compassion Center starts giving out food boxes a week before big holidays so people can prepare their holiday meals. When donations are short like last year -- when they got donations right up to the day before the main event -- the agency was late in getting boxes out.

Even when there are donations, the center doesn't always get the food that is most needed. Sanders said she tries to provide full dinners for people, but sometimes the center has only cereal or canned goods. It never has enough turkeys for all the families who need them, she said.

"I always encourage people to understand our agency and what we do. We are not trying to meet all the food needs a family has. Our children, families, elderly, they are sourcing a big portion of their food needs themselves. We are filling in the gaps. We are there that last week of the month before that check comes in, before Social Security comes in, when they just don't have quite enough to make it," Sanders said.

"Maybe someone's hours got cut in the family and they are down to the last week. Whatever they budgeted, they don't have because the person normally working 25 hours only got to work 10 this week," she said. "We are handing out a box of food, or allowing people to come get a box of food, that will last them probably three days, four at the most."

A week ago, a long line formed out the door at the St. John Missionary Baptist Church Food Bank and Clothes Closet in Little Rock. When people departed. they each carried a box or two of groceries to their cars.

"We're open every second and fourth Thursday of each month, except for November and December when it's just one day a month, said Willene Alexander, manager of the church's food bank. "Normally when we are open, we always serve anywhere from 150 to 160 people that day."

Last week, 360 people took home food from the pantry, Alexander said, and others had to be turned away because they didn't have the identification required.

Alexander said that in the past year and a half, she's seen her clientele grow.

"Some lost their jobs. Some have had their hours cuts. Some are grandparents that are raising their grandchildren now. There's a mixture of all of it," she said.

Local food banks and agencies like Arkansas Foodbank -- which supplies the local organizations in 33 counties -- accept food and monetary donations. Sanders said her agency can turn $1 into about five meals because it leverages national resources and discounts on food it purchases.

She said people often misrepresent who is served by food banks.

"I always tell people hunger will surprise them -- who is dealing with it. So many times it may be the young family you go to church with, the next-door neighbor you don't realize lost a spouse and that income. We see that a lot with the elderly. You just don't know they are going for a couple days without what they need," Sanders said.

"We always encourage people to think locally. Look around the neighborhood," she said. "We always encourage them to support the local pantry and soup kitchen. And then think of giving and using us as a mechanism to get that food out."

Metro on 11/24/2016

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