Arkansas Foodbank Needs Help Doubling Impact On Hungry Arkansans

The Arkansas Foodbank Network has a challenge. They're $800,000 away from raising the $14.5 million needed to build a 17,000 square foot facility.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation has given them $10.3 million. If the network falls short of its goal, it risks losing grant money to help more hungry Arkansans.

For 15-years the Arkansas Foodbank Network has called this home (8121 Distribution Drive), distributing 6 million pounds of food a year, but this year it's up to 14 million pounds. The organization is quickly running out of space and that's just one of many problems.

Phyllis Haynes explains, "We estimate that we spend about $25,000 to $30,000 this year just on repairs to the cooler, freezers, forklifts, trucks and other equipment."

That's money that could buy truck loads of canned foods.

Haynes says the facility's floors are uneven making it impossible to stack food high. Freezers are empty because of the holiday, but necessities like meat and produce have been turned away because lack of space. She says, "Sometimes when it gets to the point you're crammed full in the cooler or freezer and you can't cram anything else in and be safe, we have to do that."

The "From Hunger to Hope Campaign" will fund the construction of a new facility off 65th Street with double the capacity, growing with the needs of Arkansans.

"We need to double distribution before we can even begin to meet the need of all the hungry in Arkansas that we serve," Haynes explains.

In the past year the Foodbank has seen a 23 percent increase in demand. It services 33-counties and supplies more than 400 pantries each day. The goal is to double that, but Haynes says it will be a challenge.

She says, "We do distribute 55,000 pounds of food out of this warehouse everyday for an increasing number of hungry people so we have to keep that up and at the same time ask our community to do a little bit more in the next few months to help us reach our campaign goal."

The grant also has half a million dollars set aside to improve member food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.

The USDA says 16 percent of Arkansans are at risk of going hungry.

For more information call Karen Erren at (501) 565-8121 ext.12 or kerren@arkansasfoodbank.org