ROGERS -- Children who arrive at the Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter might have only the clothes on their backs, said Steve Schotta, executive director at the shelter.

To help ensure the needs of those children are met, golfer Liselotte Neumann handed Schotta the keys to a box truck from the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G on Monday.

"There's lots of reasons for a golf tournament to exist," said Jay Allen, tournament chairman, "This one is all about quality of life."

Charity is a part of that equation, Allen said, and the shelter makes a tangible difference in the community.

The children's shelter only exists through community support, Schotta said. The 15-foot cargo box of the truck and a lift gate will help. Before the shelter received the truck, they picked up donations in two passenger vans with the seats removed. Scotta said both were dilapidated, and one of the vans had 298,000 miles.

"It wasn't safe to drive," he said.

The 48-bed shelter accepts children removed from their home by the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division of Children and Family Services. Typically, they move on to foster families after a month to 45 days at the shelter, said Greg Russell, director of marketing.

"If you can envision having a family with 48 children, you could imagine all the goods we need," Russell said.

Children who come from crisis situations need a chance to regroup, but they also need an opportunity to be a child, Russell said.

"We have kids here that literally everything they do is a first," Russell said. First visit to the doctor, the dentist, to a movie, a museum, to McDonald's or to Chuck E. Cheese all happen at the shelter.

Sometimes the child hasn't been to school regularly and gets tutoring through the school on the shelter grounds. One day a child told the food and nutrition manager he'd never been on a picnic, Russell said.

"That day we had lunch outside," he said.

One 10-year-old was reading with a therapy dog and asked if he could take the dog for a run because he'd never done that.

"There is an unbelievable first experience," Schotta said.

The delivery truck has been on the shelter wish list for years, but administrators did not want to take money from the children to purchase the vehicle, Schotta said. They feed about 55,000 meals a year, he said.

"We've had to pass on some opportunities simply because we haven't had a good way to get things here," Russell said.

More donated goods will allow the shelter to put money into operations, Schotta said.

Donations filled the truck on Friday as local companies offered about 10 pallets of goods, Russell said. There were paper towels and feminine products from Kimberly-Clark, cereal and granola bars from General Mills, diapers and detergent from Procter & Gamble Co., and snacks from Mondelez International.

The company offers donated food and volunteer support to the shelter, said Todd Hanus, customer vice president Walmart sales at Mondelez.

On Friday, the "Joy Committee" at Mondelez was able to wheel out a pallet of Teddy Grahams, Oreos, Fig Newtons and Cheese Nips, said Dennis Reinen, customer business leader at Mondelez. The truck will make it easier on donors, Reinen said. In the past, they packed the donations in cars or vans, Reinen said.

What will be a 10-minute trip with a truck would have taken hours with cargo vans, Russell said.

Donations will be stored in a 5,500-square-foot warehouse on the shelter campus.

The truck will stay at the tournament next to the Walmart Kids Center presented by Dove for the week, and shelter staff members will be on hand to talk about what they do on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Russell said.