People are hungry all year long but it's harder during the holidays, and many in southeast Arkansas suffer most.
In Arkansas, 515,000 people -- one-sixth of the state's population -- are struggling with food insecurity issues. About 164,000 of the total are children. That means the state has the second-highest overall hunger rate in the country, and is third in child hunger.
Kathy Webb, executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, said a large number of those struggling live in rural areas like southeast Arkansas. Moreover, its counties have some of the highest hunger rates in America.
To change those statistics, many have stepped up, like Neighbor to Neighbor in Pine Bluff, which feeds adults 18 and up, community food pantries in both Dumas and Star City, and White Hall churches, which have banded together to fight hunger.
The Rev. Stephen Harrison, White Hall Family Church lead pastor and the White Hall Food Pantry board president, said, "We are aware it's bad in our area. The Delta is worse than the rest of the state."
As a result, a group of 10 churches support and operate the White Hall Food Pantry, 8203 Dollarway Road, and hand out food on the second Thursday of each month from noon until 2 p.m.
The White Hall Food Pantry is made up of the following churches: Bethany Missionary Baptist Church, Central Baptist Church White Hall, Claud Road Baptist Church, Cornerstone Apostolic Church, First Baptist Church White Hall, Hardin Baptist Church, St. Andrews Missionary Baptist Church, White Hall Family Church, White Hall United Methodist Church, and White Hall United Pentecostal Church.
The volunteers and churches are involved in different ways, Harrison said.
The food pantry is now an Arkansas Foodbank member, and, he said, this allows it to shop at the facility in Little Rock, which supplies the pantry with free and discounted items.
The church volunteers see more than just numbers; they see faces, and, Harrison said, the numbers have "deepened our resolve."
When Rebecca Stroud, White Hall United Methodist Church's Mission Ministry chairman, talks about hunger in the area, she can't hold back the tears.
She said for child hunger, there are 164,000 reasons to help, and in fact, she believes helping is the reason God put her on the Earth.
So the church's participation in the food pantry is "very, very important to me," Stroud said.
Also, the pandemic has impacted their mission in other ways, such as early on when product purchases at local stores were limited, said Stroud, who shops for the food pantry.
And the pandemic curtailed the church's 6-year-old Gandy Elementary School Backpack program, which the Methodist Church solely sponsored.
Once a month, between 15 and 25 students anonymously received a backpack filled with enough food to feed a family of five for a weekend.
For now the program is suspended, and Stroud said, "It breaks my heart."
Harrison is also passionate about the cause, and his church offers food-related programs separate from the food pantry. This fall, 1,300 boxes of the U.S. Department of Agriculure's Farmers to Families Food Boxes were distributed through his church, and in early December, the church will distribute 100 bags of food through their members.
Every little bit helps, he said.
But at the pantry, he said, "We consistently serve about 75 families each time we open."
This means they're helping about 230 to 250 kids, seniors and adults in the White Hall School District area. If seniors or shut-ins can't get to the church, they deliver.
The pandemic hasn't lessened the need but has increased the number of people who are asking for help for the first time.
The shutdown has also hurt donations, Harrison said.
While their partnerships with local businesses and civic clubs, such as the White Hall Noon Lions Club, Simmons Bank and Brookshire's Food Stores, have remained strong, two annual food drives were scrubbed.
One of the church's large food drives happens in conjunction with White Hall's Founders Day, and the summer celebration was canceled because of covid-19, Harrison said.
"It hurt. It's critical because a lot of people are going to a hard time right now," Harrison said.
The benefits of giving go beyond feeding the hungry, and Harrison quotes Proverbs 11:25, saying Jesus said,
"Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed."
For him personally, Harrison said about working with the food pantry, "It made me more grateful, more appreciative for what I have."
MaryJane Moring, Bethany Missionary Baptist Church secretary and church bulletin publisher, said the church participates in the food pantry.
"Our goal is to collect throughout the year, but the impact of covid is keeping many of our people at home and inside, and that's hurting our collections efforts. It hurts our kids, our families," she said.
Caring for the sick and poor is one of her church's missions, or in other words, Moring said, "What would Jesus do and what would he expect us to do?"
Whether to the White Hall Food Pantry or a neighborhood food pantry or hunger relief organization, Harrison said that with the continuing impact of the pandemic and the loss of jobs, it's especially important to remember those in need this year.