Making the decision to rename the Spirit of Sharing Food Pantry to Kathy’s Closet & Food Pantry in honor of former board member and supporter Kathy Tadlock was an easy one — and a fitting one.
“She loved shopping, and she loved getting clothes,” said Charles Tadlock, Kathy’s husband of 56 years. “Kathy’s Closet is very appropriate for her. She also loved flamingos, and they have lots in there, and she loved jewelry.
“I told my daughter, she should wear all her mother’s necklaces and start a pool at work to see how many she could wear before she repeated. Kathy probably had a year’s worth of necklaces.”
Kathy, who had coronary fibrosis, her husband said, died in September last year. She was 77 years old.
“She lost the elasticity in her lungs, making it difficult to breathe,” Charles said. “She had some possible hereditary factors because her mother had died from something similar.
“It is a terrible disease, and it doesn’t get a lot of publicity. Her health deteriorated over a four-month period.”
The pantry, at 106 W. Center in Sheridan, reopened March 2 under the new name. The pantry is part of the Grant County Unified Community Resource Council Inc.
“She helped move the store to this location, and she helped do some of the painting for it,” said Laurie Welch, the council’s executive director. “She has been involved in all parts of our organization. She helped with the Angel Tree Project during Christmastime — she was there every year, volunteering and taking applications. She also helped with our women’s shelter.
“She was a great lady and gave us lots of support in all of our areas.”
Charles said Kathy’s favorite service project was the Angel Tree Project.
“She always had several angels to shop for,” he said.
He said Kathy loved working with the people on the council’s board and the employees in the store.
“For them to rename it after her, it just meant a great deal to our family,” Charles said. “We were very touched by it. It was very thoughtful of them.”
Kathy graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 1958 and from Hendrix College in Conway in 1962. She served as associate director for the Arkansas Activities Association for 30 years. She was inducted into the Arkansas Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2011 in honor of her support for the track and field community.
She also served on the Alumni Board of Governors for Hendrix. Charles said she was an active member at Sheridan First United Methodist Church and sang in the choir.
“She had to be doing lots of things,” Charles said. “She just had a compassion for other people.
“And she believed, if you are going to do something, you should do it right. There is a right way to do things, and Kathy’s way was several notches above right.”
Charles said she expected a lot out of people and did not hesitate to correct people on their grammar when she was around.
“She was very active in community activities, including 5Ks and 10Ks,” Charles said. “She had the skills to do the paperwork, and for several races, she was in charge of the technical work.
“She was also a big volunteer at the local elementary school and volunteered to help with the kindergartners at lunch.”
Welch said one always knew when Kathy was arriving because she drove a light-green Volkswagen convertible with eyelashes on the headlights.
“She was a super lady, and she was involved in all kinds of stuff,” Welch said. “She did so much volunteer time with lots of different groups. She is very much missed.”
Welch said Kathy was “one of our most devoted board members.”
“She would do whatever she could,” Welch said. “She gave a lot of time to the organization, so we wanted to do something in her memory.”
Before moving to its current location in downtown Sheridan, the thrift store was in an old grocery store. Welch said that shortly after she joined in 2015, the thrift store moved in October of that year.
“There were holes in the floor, and it had an old grocery-store smell,” Welch said. “Plus, our utilities were outrageous. Any money we did make, we were putting back into our utilities and repairs.
“Here, our utilities were cut in half, and it is a better location, too, because we are right across the street from the courthouse.”
The thrift store is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. It closes an hour early on Thursdays
because of an auction held across the street. Proceeds from the store help keep the council’s women’s shelter open and the food bank stocked.
The thrift store has a wide variety of items, including clothing, shoes, household items, toys, books and movies.
Donations are welcome for the thrift store, and Welch said that right now, the biggest need for the thrift store is furniture. She said women from the shelter sometimes need furniture for their apartments, and the store donates items to them.
The food pantry, which is a member of the Arkansas Food Bank Network, is in the back of the store. Welch said the pantry serves about 400 people a month, or 200 households.
For more information on the thrift store, call (870) 942-7611 or email director.spiritofsharing@gmail.com.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.