Foodbank Network reaps Wal-Mart gift

$99,000 set to benefit state’s south

BY LINDSAY RUEBENS
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LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Foodbank Network Inc. announced Thursday that a $99,000
donation from the Wal-Mart Foundation will allow the organization to help thousands of
impoverished Arkansans.

“We’re going to use it to increase our service to some of our under served counties in southeast
and southwest Arkansas,” said Phyllis Haynes, the network’s executive director. “One of the
things we try to do is not just distribute food, but we want to make sure we distribute food
equitably, which means across our entire service area.”

Last month, Wal-Mart announced it will focus on preventing national hunger by donating $2
billion to relief groups by 2015.

“Hunger food banks, and in this case the Arkansas Foodbank Network, are extremely important
to us to support, and I know we’ve given them previous grants to purchase trucks and to help
better serve the residents of Arkansas,” said Kelly Cheeseman, a spokesman for the Wal-Mart
Foundation.

The money will be used to buy freezers, coolers and computers needed for food transportation.

Haynes said it’s typical for nonprofit organizations to serve people close to their headquarters
but that the Foodbank Network is committed to distributing food to each of the 33 counties it
serves.

“We’ve been tracking the pounds we distribute in our counties for several years and have found
that historically we distribute more pounds of product in the more urban counties like Pulaski
and White, Faulkner, Garland and so forth,” Haynes said. “But when you get down to counties
like Ashley and Chicot and Desha and some of those counties in the southwest, there aren’t as
many resources in those counties.”

Clark, Cleveland, Dallas, Drew, Hot Spring, Lincoln,Ouachita and Union counties will also
receive help as a result of the grant, according to a news release from the nonprofit
organization. In those counties, there are about 65,000 Arkansans living in poverty, the release
said.

Cheeseman said one in six people in America aren’t sure where their next meal will come from.
“That’s a number we definitely want to bring down.”

Haynes said that in addition to equipment, the grant will allow the organization to purchase more
“luxury” items such as peanut butter, milk and meat products.

Such products were in depleted supply last week for the Arkansas Rice Depot, which serves
312 food pantries across the state.

After the Rice Depot gave a plea for help, director Laura Rhea said, people have been coming
forward with donations of protein products.
“We don’t want to be the lone boy who cries ‘wolf ’ and say, ‘We’re out of this,’ or ‘We’re out of
that,’ when we can get by,” Rhea said. “But when we say we’re out, we are out.”

This week, she said, Tyson Foods Inc. donated 800 packages of chicken livers to the Rice
Depot.

“The people of Arkansas are so generous,” Rhea said. “And once they know there’s a real need
out there, they are so good about giving.”
This article was published June 11, 2010 at 4:30 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/11/2010