Vicki Gill helped start a food pantry more than 30 years ago in Perryville, and since then, the number of families the pantry serves has more than quadrupled.
Partners in Progress is an all-volunteer organization that started with a group of about 10 interested residents, she said.
“We would do maybe, when we started, 60 families a month the first few years,” Gill said.
Now, 250 families receive food each month.
Gill said the pantry started when a friend, a former Perry County administrator for the Department of Human Services, placed an article in the newspaper asking if anyone was interested in starting “some sort of program that would assist people with food. That was it.”
The woman, Suzanne Rogers, went to First United Methodist Church in Perryville, where Gill attended at the time. Rogers has since died.
“A group of us just met together; there must have been about 10 of us,” Gill said. “A lot of our board and a lot of volunteers have been with us since the beginning.”
Gill moved to Ferndale 20 years ago because of her husband’s job, but she has stayed involved as the organization’s volunteer director.
Gill said members of the group knew they needed to get a 501 (c)(3) number and register with the secretary of state’s office.
“An organization had already started in Perry County — a lot of agencies were going to form an agency — they had done the paperwork,” she said. “But they didn’t have a real mission and kind of folded. We were able to take over their name. We had a goal, and our goal always was to help provide emergency food for people in Perry County.
“We have an emergency food pantry; we also have a clothes closet. We do Thanksgiving bags and Christmas bags for families. People need to sign up with us — the families do — and we [serve] senior citizens who are income eligible.”
The pantry is at 1115 Aplin Ave.; the phone number for more information is (501) 889-2422.
“We’ve moved all around. This is our fourth location in Perry County,” she said. “This was originally a community doctor’s building; that doctor then retired. The board that existed said we could take over the space.”
Food-pantry service hours are 10 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday, but it’s closed the second Wednesday of the month, when it gets a truckload of food from the Arkansas Food Bank.
“We get food from other sources, also,” Gill said. “Another food pantry picks up food directly, and they share some with us. We get a pretty good donation from Tyson, and we are very grateful for that.”
Gill said that to receive food, people must show their identification and proof that they live in Perry County.
Volunteer Bobby Taylor said he’s been involved with Partners for Progress for about six years.
“Then I worked with Conway at a food bank … for 17 years,” he said. “That’s what we’re supposed to do, help our fellow man.”
Taylor said he’s seen an increase in families served the past two or three months from about 230 to 250.
The money donated helps, he said, “because a dollar goes further at the Food Bank” than going to a grocery store.
“Anything you can think you’d have to have, these people have to have — toilet paper, toothpaste, clothing, food, the whole 9 yards.”
Gill said the focus is Perry County, and “we are a faith-based organization, but nothing is required.”
She read the pantry’s mission statement: “Responding to Christ’s command that we love one another and to demonstrate our commitment to our neighbors in Perry County, we covenant to feed the hungry and assist people with their basic needs when and where possible in Perry County. We intend to provide a community organization where resources can be pooled effectively and disbursed equitably. We remember that it is in a spirit of partnership that we offer assistance, and any kindness shown is an act of worship.”
The needs of the food bank are constant, she said, and donations are vital.
“We’ll always take donations of food or money — always. If we don’t use the food directly in the Christmas baskets, we’ll be feeding people the day after Christmas,” she said.
“Our community supports us; that’s the big thing. This community — we don’t have any industry, but the community really takes care of it.”
She said Partners for Progress has several fundraisers a year, including a couple of yard sales, and volunteers sell lemonade each year at the Arkansas Goat Festival in Perryville.
“We can’t spend a lot of time raising funds because we’re all volunteers,” she said. “The only day I come in is Wednesday. I work as a preschool teacher in Little Rock.
“We really do rely on our community to help it go. We’ve always said if the community doesn’t support us, we’ll go home.”
After three decades and counting, Gill doesn’t see the food pantry stopping anytime soon.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-5671 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.