Arkansas Foodbank Programs Help the Hungry
Backpacks For Kids
Backpacks for Kids provides underserved children with food for the weekends and school holidays. At the end of each week children involved in the program pick up a backpack of food to take home. The backpacks are inconspicuous and previously prepared by volunteers. They are filled with nutritious, child-friendly items that are easy for young ones to prepare.
The Arkansas Foodbank operates 8 "Backpacks for Kids" sites, and is able to provide backpacks to more than 1,000 children each month, a total of more than 4,000 meals. Many of the backpacks are prepared by volunteers at Arkansas Foodbank Network partner agencies. For example, The Church at Rock Creek supplies more than 500 backpacks to students in the Little Rock and North Little Rock School District.
Rural Delivery
Access to the Arkansas Foodbank from isolated, rural locales, especially in the Delta, is sometimes challenging. Food pantries and other organizations located in some of Arkansas' most impoverished areas have a hard time getting to the warehouse to pick up food. Therefore, the Arkansas Foodbank truck delivers food on a monthly basis so that the agencies in these areas have food to distribute to hungry Arkansans. Deliveries are made each month to eleven sites including Pine Bluff, Warren, Marianna, Prairie County, Clarendon, Helena and Van Buren County.
For more information, contact Connie Bledsoe at (501) 565-8121, ext. 14 or email cbledsoe@arkansasfoodbank.org
Fresh Produce
Fresh produce is becoming harder for those in need to obtain. Purchasing fresh foods is not cost effective for food service organizations and prices in the grocery store are rising significantly. These factors cause impoverished people to eat less expensive and less healthy foods.The Arkansas Foodbank has made it a priority to get donated truckloads of fresh produce including sweet potatoes, corn, apples, oranges, cantaloupe and more. These truckloads are available to the Foodbank's 33-county service area as a healthy alternative.
Contact Connie Bledsoe at (501) 565-8121 or email her cbledsoe@arkansasfoodbank.org
Senior Supplement Program
The Arkansas Foodbank, in partnership with CareLink (Central Arkansas Area Agency on Aging), sponsors the Senior Supplement program to help seniors in central Arkansas who struggle to stretch their Social Security income to pay rent, utilities, medicine and food. This program provides 55 seniors with a monthly box of groceries to help with the burden of expenses. Volunteers pack the boxes at the Foodbank warehouse. The boxes are distributed by volunteers at CareLink and the Visiting Nurses Association on the third Saturday of each month. Recipients are selected by CareLink and the Visiting Nurses Association.To find out more about the Senior Supplement Program, contact SiKia Brown, Child and Adult Services Coordinator, at (501) 565-8121 or by email at sbrown@arkansasfoodbank.org
Kids Cafe Program
Over the past two decades we have identified niche needs within the hunger community and developed programs to address those needs: In 2000, the Arkansas Foodbank, in conjunction with Feeding America, partnered with the Boys and Girls Clubs to establish the Kids Cafe program. Kids Cafe is the nation's largest after-school meal service and nutritional education program exclusively for children in need.
Currently, the Foodbank serves meals and snacks to more than 1,700 children each month in 21 Boys and Girls Clubs throughout central and southern Arkansas. The program reaches some of the state's most underprivileged kids and provides powerful tools for success in life. Mike Neuhofel, former Executive Director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Little Rock and North Little Rock says that Kids Cafe is "teaching kids life skills about eating healthy and choosing foods with nutritional value."
For more information, contact SiKia Brown, Child and Adult Services Coordinator, at (501) 565-8121 or by email at sbrown@arkansasfoodbank.org
Kids Cafe Sites In Our Service Area
Billy Mitchell Boys and Girls Club
Boys and Girls Club of Ashley County
Boys and Girls Club of Drew County
Boys and Girls Club of Hot Springs
Boys and Girls Club of Jefferson County
Boys and Girls Club of Malvern
Boys and Girls Club of Phillips County
Boys and Girls Club of Saline County
Dalton-Whetstone Boys and Girls Club
Hamilton Boys and Girls Club
McGehee Boys and Girls Club
Ouachita County - Camden - Carver Courts, Ft. Lookout, Ivory Heights & Lincoln Center
Penick Boys and Girls Club
Phoenix Youth & Family Services - Crossett, Dumas & McGehee
Rose City Boys and Girls Club
Wetherington-North Little Rock Boys and Girls Club