Eight years ago, stemming from a children’s ministry at her church in Gurdon, Velvet Gonzalez took on an endeavor that has surpassed her expectations.
“It started from a children’s program that we had on Wednesday nights, where we would bus kids in from the town and feed them,” Gonzalez said. “Another man in our community, Tommy Potter, had a small emergency food pantry, and we decided to join our efforts and become members of the Arkansas Food Bank.
“That would help feed our children on Wednesday nights, and he would be able to have more food for his emergency pantry. In the first month that we did it, we had 60 households show up in need of food — so we realized there was a much greater need than just our kids on Wednesday nights.”
Gonzalez and about 30 volunteers operate the pantry once a month and serve an average of 170 households, which comes out to be 600 individuals, with a box of food every month, she said. She said the pantry distributes anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of food that day, and the boxes include fresh produce, staple items and meat. She said each box averages 30 to 40 pounds.
Gonzalez said that for the first three years, the pantry operated out of the Faith Mission Building on Main Street in Gurdon but eventually outgrew that space. Evergreen Church in Gurdon, which Gonzalez attends, purchased two buildings that used to be an old grocery store and a department store and had been vacant for years.
“We completely demolished the grocery-store building and took this one and completely redid the inside and outside,” Gonzales said. “Our funding comes from local individuals and churches that support the pantry monthly, but we also do some grant writing and have received grants from the Arkansas Food Bank, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Clark County Community Foundation.”
She said the church has really supported the pantry by paying for all the utilities and the expenses that have incurred with the building. She said the other donations solely support the food purchases, which cost about $1,000 a month.
“God has provided in a mighty way,” Gonzalez said. “Most places I go to and visit, they say they never have enough volunteers or funding.
“But we have never gone out and asked for funding. We always have individuals and churches that are willing to volunteer and support it. It is just amazing how our volunteers just show up every month.
“I just don’t think there is a huge struggle,” Gonzalez said of finding volunteers or funding for the pantry.
On July 29, Gonzales was presented with the IMPACT Award from the Kiwanis of Clark County.
“I felt very honored, but I wanted the whole program and the volunteers and the hours they give to make it happen; they show up every month,” Gonzales said. “The award was really given to the community pantry and volunteers overall, because while I do the organizing, it doesn’t do any good if they don’t have people who show up and put their hands to it.”
Ivory Curry is the pastor at Carrie Street of God in Gurdon and has known Gonzales for seven years.
“She is an outstanding community servant,” he said. “She looks for any way to make the community better, and she devotes a tremendous amount of time to organizing really good food baskets, and she looks for all the available funds to support [the project].”
Pam Runyan is a volunteer at the pantry and has known Gonzales for almost 30 years.
“I appreciate that we can help our community and the people in our community,” Runyan said. “We don’t have to worry about anybody going hungry. We can provide nourishment to the people who need it.
“I love visiting with all of the people, and it is so good to see all of the senior citizens. … We just like them to know that we care about them, and we love them. And if there is something we can do, we find a way, even if it is out of our own pockets.
“Sometimes it’s even the individuals who work in the pantry. If there is something they need, we meet the needs ourselves.”
Runyan is a former teacher for the Gurdon School District and has been retired for three years. She taught Gonzales’ kids and grandchildren.
“Once I retired, that’s when I had the opportunity to work at the pantry,” Runyan said. “It is a Christian-based ministry, and the people who attend know that.
“We don’t preach to them or anything like that. We just let them know they are loved.”
She said she and a few others have provided blankets and food — out of their own pockets, sometimes.
“We also want to make sure families have the school supplies they need,” Runyan said. “We want every child to go to school with equal opportunities.
“As a teacher, I can’t tell you how much money I spent every year to make sure my students had what they needed. Sometimes it was even a pair of shoes.”
Gonzales said the pantry is really about “feeding the body and the soul.”
“It is our desire to give a hand up, not just a hand out,” she said. “Our plan is to continue to offer programs here that would help build our community.”
Nicole McGough, with the Patterson Credit Union, organized Cooking Matters classes last fall, including one for children and another for adults. Gonzales said the aim of the classes is to teach people how to cook better and eat better. She also said Baptist Health will host a diabetes class.
“We also work with the public schools here to help keep their pantries supplied through the Arkansas Food Bank,” Gonzales said.
At one point, the pantry was serving more than 300 households, but Gonzales said that was before limitations were placed on whom the pantry serves.
“The reason we cut back and why our numbers dropped is because we started limiting to the surrounding areas that didn’t have access to a food pantry,” she said. “The funds that were coming in were specifically needed to be used for our area.”
Gonzales said anybody is allowed to receive food, as long as they bring two proofs of address with them. She said the pantry doesn’t require any other records or proof of income.
“We do offer food to those who live in Curtis, Okolona and all the smaller communities around us that don’t have access to a pantry,” Gonzales said. “We don’t do Arkadelphia, Prescott or Camden, just for the fact that they already have pantries that exist there.”
“Velvet is similar to myself in so many ways,” Runyan said. “She is a strong Christian person, and she sees the needs in our community and wants to provide help for people.
“She works many long hours preparing for that third Monday of the month — making sure we have the food and all that needs to be done.”
The church still hosts its weekly children ministry, feeding about 50 to 60 kids. Gonzales said the food comes from the church, and sometimes the pantry is able to supply a little bit as well.
“It is something God has opened a door for me to work in,” she said. “I just get to be a part of that. I love the volunteers and the community that has been built and how they care for each other.
“I look forward to our once-a-month gathering and just seeing how God takes care of it. When there is a need, he always supplies it.”
Gonzales said this is something “God truly did for us.”
“We didn’t have in our hearts to start a food ministry in any way, but just from trying to feed our children on Wednesday nights, God just kind of led us into that, and it just became a bigger ministry than we anticipated it being,” she said.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.