SPRINGDALE — Just before winter break, Austin Hazelton began to hear some students at his school probably wouldn’t get a holiday dinner.
Hazelton, a Har-Ber High School senior, said he wanted to do something to help.
Hazelton is part of the Safe Wildcat Action Team, a safety organization on campus, and had the idea to use some of the organization’s money for a holiday meal program for families in need, said Tommy Wooten, resource officer at Har-Ber and action team adviser.
Many people take food for granted and don’t realize the need around them, Hazelton said.
“There are kids here that don’t have a lot,” Wooten said.
Students from Safe Wildcat Action Team and Youth For Christ, a faith-based organization — in five school days — raised $2,554 through donations, Wooten said. The students also worked with the local Harps grocery store to put together 72 boxes of food each of which could feed six people, he said.
The food was delivered to the families of students in need from Har-Ber, Springdale High, Central Junior High and George Junior High schools, Wooten said.
“Every bag of food ended up in a proper home,” Wooten said. “It affected many different families.”
The decision was then made to expand the project into something permanent.
“We wanted to do something sustainable,” Wooten said.
They decided to use a projection room on campus for a food pantry, Wooten said. The carpentry class at the school is working to put shelves together, he said.
Details on how the pantry will work are still being discussed, but the students are planning to stock it with food drives and perhaps the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, Wooten said.
The food bank functions as a supplier for food pantries, said Marge Wolf, president and chief executive officer. The food bank is the only one in Northwest Arkansas and caters to 175 food pantries, she said.
The pantry at Har-Ber will help the students learn people their age are in need while helping those in the community, Wolf said.
Running a pantry is difficult because pantries have limited supplies to distribute, she said.
“It’s a big challenge for them to do what they’re doing,” Wolf said. “You only have so much to distribute and you can’t do anything past that.”
The school’s pantry won’t be able to support families on a month-to-month basis, but will be able to help families for a few days or a week at a time, Wooten said. If a family needs long-term help, students will refer them to a larger food pantry, he said.
At the end of the school year, the food pantry will become a project of the school’s Environmental And Spatial Technology program on campus, said Robert Watson, a junior on the action team and in the program. They are working to get an inventory system started, he said.
“I think it’s important to give back, and this is a good way to give back to students who need it,” Watson said.
There are no plans for the pantry to operate this summer, Wooten said.
Har-Ber’s food pantry will be available to students and families of students in all Springdale schools in need of food, Wooten said. Students in need can get in touch with the food pantry through Har-Ber’s counselors, he said.
“If we have the ability to give them food, then we’ll do it,” Wooten said.
Fast Facts
Arkansas Hunger
•25 percent of people in Northwest Arkansas struggle with hunger or lack of food.
• 27.8 percent of children in Arkansas struggled with hunger in 2011.
• More than 200,000 children in Arkansas were at risk of hunger in 2011.
Source: Staff Report