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Ernesteen Neighbors was in a jam. Her husband had died after a long bout with cancer, and she had become estranged from her stepchildren. Living in a trailer near Hot Springs, life was growing increasingly difficult. “I contemplated suicide,” Ernesteen said, shaking her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “I just thought, I lost half my family. They’re gone.” And she was having trouble making her small check stretch to the end of the month. Paying the light bill, buying food and medicine, she would be broke before the month was out. Then one day she happened to pass Faith Fellowship Church, a nondenominational church on state Hwy. 7 not far from her home.“Something drew me in here and I came through those doors,” she said, sitting in a meeting room at the church on a recent food pantry day. The pastor, Troy Jennings, was in the sanctuary that day and he welcomed Ernesteen with open arms. Soon Ernesteen was a regular in receiving a box of food at the church’s twice-weekly food pantry. "It helped a lot,"she said. But when she got back on her feet and wasn’t so desperate, she became a volunteer at the pantry, helping those who, like herself, are trying to put themselves back togetherafter a crisis.Brandi Robertson, another Faith Fellowship volunteer who makes weekly trips to Little Rock to pick up food at the Foodbank, said Ernesteen’s progress has been amazing to watch.“She used to come here just for food, but now she’s made a whole 360 and helps others,” Brandi turned to look at Ernesteen. “She’s a total blessing for us. We are so blessed to have her here.”Ernesteen told her story while sitting in the church hall. Outside, a line at the registration table waited to pick up boxes of food. Volunteers pushed shopping carts with the food to the parking lot with each recipient. Each one was asked if they would like a prayer, and time after time little circles would form with recipients and church members holding hands as a volunteer said a blessing.For her part, Ernesteen says, “I love giving back to these people. I know I have lifted their spirits. They come in here with their heads down, about to give up and I can see them, most them I know, they’ll get a smile on their face and they’ll come and hug me and when they leave I know they feel better.”“And if they’re in trouble I help them all I can. Whatever I’ve got, they can have it,” she said.She talked about how hard it is living on a monthly check of $680. “My trailer is paid for,” she said, otherwise it would be really hard. Can she stretch the money far enough?” Brandi asked her. \“No, but it’s all right,” she replied. “The food helps a lot, and we always make it fun unloading the trucks. It’s a blessing to bring it in and it’s a blessing to give it out.”Brandi said 90 percent of the food the pantry distributes comes from the Foodbank. “We could not do what we do without the “She used to come here for food, but now she’smade a whole 360 and helps others,” said the FaithFellowship Food Pantry’s Brandi Robertson.“She’s a total blessing to us.”
Foodbank. Before Foodbank we couldn’t get near as much food. We would go and buy two or three pallets (four-by-four warehouse frames stacked with food) and spend $500, $600. Now (at the Foodbank) we can get eight pallets for $150 to $200 — it depends on what we’re getting — but that 18 cents a pound, it’s just phenomenal!”The Foodbank receives donated food but often has to pay shipping costs to an independent hauler. That cost gets passed along to the food pantries that rely on the Foodbank for supplies.Brandi said the current economic downturn has their pantry stretched to the limit. “If we could come twice a week, we would. That’s how much need there is.”Ernesteen says having good, nourishing food to eat is so important to people struggling with hunger. “You may want a pizza but you wind up with beef stew! So you go back to basics. You can’t have thirty-, forty-, fifty-dollar meals. The good Lord didn’t have fancy food and it didn’t kill him, I guess!”
See some of the paper plates on Flickr.com . . .
The food drive helped bring in food and raise awareness of hunger in Arkansas.
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The Donald W. Reynolds Distribution Center, with its increased capacity to store food and fresh produce, offers the promise of greater help for the food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens and other agencies that serve the hungry people of Arkansas directly.
Our 9th annual Empty Bowls charity fundraiser was a great success, raising more money for hungry Arkansans than any previous Empty Bowls event here. TV personality Tom Brannon of Today's THV again served as emcee and auctioneer. Event co-chairs Arkansas Att. Gen. Dustin McDaniel and his wife, Bobbie, served as co-chairs. More than 600 people attended the event, held for the first time in our new warehouse. People seemed to really enjoy themselves.
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