As families throughout Arkansas prepared to assemble for a traditional noon Christmas dinner Saturday, another family was hard at work preparing food, gifts and Christmas cheer for Little Rock residents experiencing homelessness, unemployment and economic insecurity.
At the Little Rock Compassion Center, Rosemary Holloway and her husband, Pastor William Holloway, along with a few employees and a lot of volunteers, provided meals, financial assistance, nightly shelter and, for those in need of it, a drug and alcohol recovery program.
"This will be our 24th year," Rosemary Holloway said over the din of the volunteer crew preparing to serve Christmas dinner to the crowd assembled just before noon. "And it continues to grow, the need here."
The first year, she said, the center served 12 meals for its first Thanksgiving holiday meal.
"This year we had 800 for lunch," she said. Although holiday meals are a tradition at the center, she said the center serves three meals a day, 365 days a year.
As the first group of some 80 people filed in Saturday, filling the dining hall to capacity, all were given squirts of hand sanitizer and asked their names for the Christmas gift drawing to be held after the meal. Rosemary Holloway said that after the first wave of people, another group would be admitted, and provided dinner and gifts, until everyone was served. Then, the activity would begin again at 4 p.m.
"We just never know how many we'll have so we'll do two or three rounds," she said.
All who came were served a meal of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and green beans, dessert, bread, milk and coffee. Each person's name was taken down and placed in a bowl to be drawn for gifts.
"Enjoy," a volunteer told each person in line as he served desserts. "Merry Christmas."
"Hey," called out a man sitting at one of the tables. "I didn't get dessert. I'll come back and get one."
"Okay," said the server, with a smile. "Whenever you're ready."
"You getting all you want?" Pastor Holloway said with a smile as he clapped one man on the shoulder.
"Yes, sir," the man replied.
"Good," Holloway said as he walked by, heading to another table to check on the guests eating there.
"If you want seconds, come on up and get it," a server called out as the line dwindled.
In addition to the holiday meals served on-site, the Compassion Center provided take-out meals and prepared food boxes for area families. This week, Rosemary Holloway said, some 2,000 meals were given out in food boxes.
"We try to make sure there's enough for six to seven days worth of meals in each box, depending on how many people there are in a family to feed," she said. "Each box has a turkey or chicken and plenty of vegetables."
Throughout the room, people talked, laughed, smiled and ate, enjoying the company, the meal and the festive air of the holiday, appearing to put all cares and worries on the back burner for the day.
One man, looking through a row of tables piled high with gifts such as pullover hats, gloves, coats, blankets, bags of hygiene items, and other essentials, exclaimed excitedly, "Man, I'm going to get me some socks. By God, if I have to buy them, I'm getting me some socks."
A group of servers approached the table to begin calling names and distributing gifts. Rosemary Holloway picked up a microphone to get everyone's attention.
"When your name is called you can come up and pick three gifts from the table," she announced. "And if there's any left over you can come up and get some more."
Several people helping out on Christmas Day at the Compassion Center were once among those who had once been in desperate need of help themselves.
Melissa Caulder, 58, grew up in Georgia but has been in Central Arkansas for roughly the past 35 years. After suffering years of childhood abuse, she said, she entered into an equally abusive marriage that after 10 years produced two children and resulted in seven broken bones.
After escaping her marriage, Caulder said, she was introduced to methamphetamine and crack cocaine, which she consumed for the next 25 years of her life. To finance her drug habit, she said, she turned to prostitution and theft.
"I walked these streets right out here in front of this center before I knew what this was," Caulder said. "I met my husband through drugs, and he had a big inheritance of $450,000. We went through it in two years, and we became homeless."
After losing their home in Little Rock, Caulder said she and her husband, Bart, who also serves at the Compassion Center, managed to buy a double-wide mobile home in Bigelow in a bid to get away from the drugs.
"We were thinking we could move from drugs," she said, then added with a wry smile, "but they've got drugs out there too."
Finally, she said, they arrived at the Compassion Center nine years ago.
"We both gave our lives to Jesus Christ, we learned how to budget our money, and Pastor taught us how to live life on life's terms," she said. "It's a miracle. We have our own house now, and we just adopted our grandkids because our daughter is on drugs.
"We want people who come through that door to know that they can change, too," she said. "This is a place of change."
Jessica Lindstrand, 37, agreed. Describing herself as a binge drinker, she said she tried several 30-day rehabilitation stints with no success.
"They just dry you up and send you out," she said. "This place actually fills that void."
Mark Hughes, 62, said he spent years as a professional chef working at such venues as Del Friscos and Cattlemen's Steakhouse in Fort Worth.
"I drank every day for 30 years," he said. "Then, I drank too much one day and decided I was going to quit. Twenty-four hours later I went into [delirium tremens -- a severe form of alcohol withdrawal], got on a bus in Fort Worth and got off in Little Rock."
Hughes said his withdrawals were so severe that he heard voices telling him he would be better off dead.
"So I hung myself," he said. "In the Salvation Army bathroom. But God spoke to me and told me he wasn't done with me. Three days later I ended up here."
Pastor Holloway said whatever the need -- to change one's life or to get a hot meal and a bed for the night -- the Compassion Center works to meet those needs.
And on Christmas Day, the faces of those served bore witness to a need for fellowship and Christmas cheer being well met.
Chris Demaree looks at the bags of essentials and holiday goodies Saturday during Christmas meal and giveaway at the Compassion Center in Little Rock. See more photos at arkansasonline.com/1226compassion/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
Volunteers Randy and Pam Page of Cabot prepare plates of cobbler Saturday during Christmas meal and giveaway at the Compassion Center in Little Rock. See more photos at arkansasonline.com/1226compassion/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)