FAYETTEVILLE — Two Fayetteville organizations, one that works with the homeless and another that works with abused children, got an early Christmas present Tuesday from Wal-Mart employees.
“It’s an absolutely fantastic Christmas present,” Ben McLintock said of the $30,000 local choice grant the Economic Opportunity Agency’s Northwest Arkansas Children’s House received. “We’re just so pleased that Wal-Mart sees the value of investing in the lives of children in Northwest Arkansas.”
McLintock, director of development for EOA, said the money will be used to buy therapy equipment, education materials and for upkeep and fuel for the bus used to transport the children.
The Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter is a private, nonprofit organization that provides 24-hour emergency residential care to children who are victims of family violence, neglect, and physical and sexual abuse.
The organization will move into a new center in Springdale at the end of next year. The items funded by the grant are all items that can be taken to or used at the new site.
Seven Hills Homeless Shelter will use a $50,000 grant to cover expenses at its day center on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fayetteville, Jon Woodward said.
“Every day since August 2008, we’d had more than 100 people come through our doors,” Woodward said. “We’re just greatly appreciative of Wal-Mart’s continued support of Seven Hills Homeless Shelter.”
Woodward said Wal-Mart has been a consistant supporter of the shelter over the years.
The shelter works with both the situationally homeless — those going through a divorce, a job loss or other crisis — and the chronically homeless. It’s the only facility in Northwest Arkansas serving the chronic homeless, those who’ve been homeless for more than a year or four times in the last three years, Woodward said. In addition to a safe place to stay, the shelter offers job training, life-skills and support programs to help people back to self-sufficiency.