Feed Our Vets

New organization growing in Cabot

April Banks, from left, Todd Banks, Deyonka Hickey, James Zollicoffer’, Joyce Short and Joe Short represent Feed Our Vets at a fundraiser. Feed Our Vets is a new veterans’ food pantry in Cabot.
April Banks, from left, Todd Banks, Deyonka Hickey, James Zollicoffer’, Joyce Short and Joe Short represent Feed Our Vets at a fundraiser. Feed Our Vets is a new veterans’ food pantry in Cabot.

In a city like Cabot that is so near the Little Rock Air Force Base, it is common to see active-duty military personnel and veterans. Neighbors, friends and people at the grocery store and playing in the park are often military families. Even so, it can sometimes be easy to forget how many veterans are in need.

Deyonka Hickey hasn’t forgotten about those veterans who struggle every month to eat, and she has started a nonprofit to help vets in need.

“My girlfriends and I were sitting around, and we don’t have kids at home anymore, so we were trying to figure out something we could do,” Hickey said. “We started surfing around, and I thought about opening a food pantry for veterans.”

Hickey is a U.S. Air Force veteran herself, and she currently works for the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. The need for a veterans’ pantry is apparent to her, and she wanted to find some way to help.

With the idea for a veterans’ food pantry in place, Hickey had to figure out the best way to go about starting the organization.

“We could have done it privately, or we could have gone to a foundation,” she said. “I started doing some research and found the foundation up in New York called Feed Our Veterans. They’ve served over 350,000 vets so far, and they’ve been open for eight years.”

Hickey contacted the leaders at Feed Our Veterans and had an opportunity to fly to Utica, New York, to see how the organization operates.

“It was awesome,” she said.

After that meeting, Hickey started opening the first Feed Our Vets pantry outside the state of New York.

Feed Our Vets in Cabot has already seen tremendous growth, Hickey said. On its first day — March 18 — the pantry served eight veterans by distributing 187 pounds of food. The next month — on April 18 — the organization served 21 veterans with 750 pounds of food.

“We got a space donated to us,” Hickey said, referring to the initial space at 2535 S. Rockwood Road at the back part of Hope’s Closet. “We operated out of there for two months, and we’ve outgrown it. We just got a new space, a storage unit, at Budget Self Storage (114 Financial Drive).”

Hickey said the pantry operates like a grocery store.

“They come in, and I have carts for them, and they go and get whatever they want,” she said. “When they come out, we have to weigh everything, then annotate it. Then they get to go. It’s pretty cool.”

Feed Our Vets is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. the third Saturday of every month. Upcoming dates include May 20, June 17, July 15 and Aug. 19.

Veterans seeking help must bring two items: either their DD Form 214, military ID, retired ID or Veterans Administration health care ID, and either a driver’s license or a state ID.

Those who want to volunteer at Feed Our Vets can contact Hickey at www.facebook.com/feedourvetscabot or deyonka@feedourvets.org.

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