Needy School Children Benefit From Community Christmas Card

Donations provide shoes, warm coats, medication or other items

— Some children come to school in Fayetteville and other local districts hungry, in need of shoes or medication, or a visit to a dentist.

“We’ve seen a greater need as far as food this year,” said Sara Chamberlin, a social worker at Leverett and Asbell elementary schools in Fayetteville. The two schools have higher rates of poverty in the Fayetteville district as measured by the number of students eligible for free or reduced price meals.

At Asbell, 76 percent of the students in kindergarten through fifth grade meet federal poverty guidelines that make them eligible for free or reduced price meals; at Leverett, 64 percent of the students are eligible.

Readers of the Northwest Arkansas Times and other newspapers in the Northwest Arkansas Newspapers family can help these hundreds of often overlooked children by signing the Community Christmas card.

For a $2 donation, a donor’s name will appear on the advertisement to be published Friday, on Christmas Day. Contributors can specify the school district the donation will go to.

The money designated by Fayetteville readers will remain in the Fayetteville School District, earmarked for the district’s Safety Net fund.

Kim Burk, social work coordinator for the district, said the money is used to support a food pantry, which is opened once a month; to pay for doctor’s appointments and medications; and to help with other needs of the children.

Needs range from food and clothing to paying for physical education uniforms and school clothing as well as doctor visits and medications, eyeglasses or dental work.

Social workers are seeing about 60 families a month, which Burk estimated is a 20 to 25 percent increase over the number of families last year.

Jennifer Kephart, a social worker at Owl Creek School, said she too is seeing more hunger among the school’s 750 students in pre-kindergarten through seventh grade. At Owl Creek, 69 percent of the students are eligible for free and reduced price meals.

The two social workers recently staffed a Christmas food basket give-away to needy families with children in Fayetteville schools.

“This really helps with kids out of school for two weeks. It’s tough on families,” Kephart said.

The effort provided nearly 400 baskets to families who were invited to participate. Each family received a variety of nonperishable food items, a bag of potatoes, a ham, a sack of hygiene products, a board game and hats and gloves for the children.

Donations to the Community Christmas Card is a minimum $2. Donations will be accepted until noon Wednesday. Donations can also be made without having a name appear on the advertisement if the donor prefers.

Deliver your donation to any Northwest Arkansas Newspapers, daily or weekly, office or mail your donation to: Northwest Arkansas Newspapers, C/O Community Christmas Card, P.O. Box 1607, Fayetteville, AR 72702.

Donations to the Community Christmas Card are tax-deductible as a result of a partnership between Northwest Arkansas Newspapers and the Northwest Arkansas Community Foundation.

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