Between The Lines: Full Stomachs, Fuller Minds

The problem is not one most people think about, particularly not here in Northwest Arkansas.

But there are hungry people among us, people described these days as "food insecure," uncertain where their next meal will come from. Statewide estimates put the number at 19 percent, or almost one out of five Arkansas residents.

What's worse, children make up a large percentage of them. Twenty-five percent of children in Northwest Arkansas -- or one child in every four children in this comparatively prosperous region -- is reportedly unsure where his or her next meal will come from.

Federal programs make free and reduced-cost breakfasts and lunches available to children in school. But what happens on the weekend? Too many kids have little or nothing to eat and may do without until the next school day.

The need is great enough that a nonprofit group that already helps thousands of hungry children each year is stepping up to help more.

Samaritan Community Center has since 2005 sent some of the region's elementary schoolchildren home from school on Fridays with a bag of snacks to help them get through what can be a long, uncomfortable weekend with little or no food in the house. The program is called SnackPacks for Kids and is available to children in four Northwest Arkansas counties -- Washington, Benton, Madison and Carroll.

Last week, the center unveiled a similar program targeted to middle school students. It is called Middle School Mini Meals. Although it will initially serve 400 students weekly, it will grow in the coming years to help more.

As Debbie Rambo, executive director of the center, emphasized last week, students who have access to food and good nutrition are healthier, happier, less stressed and do better in school.

The same philosophy is behind the free and reduced-cost breakfasts and lunches in the schools. Students simply do better if their minds aren't on their growling stomachs.

The Samaritan Community Center's latest effort will address weekend hunger problems for the most at-risk middle schoolchildren.

On Friday, the group began handing out the Mini Meals to middle school children in the Springdale School District.

Startup money for Middle School Mini Meals comes from $160,000 in key grants and donations from Harps Foods, Bank of America and Care Foundation. It is enough, according to Samaritan Center officials, to pay for two years of the program, although the group has outlined a five-year launch.

The center is looking for money for future years of Mini Meals, which they say will continue as long as the center can pay for the program.

The SnackPacks for Kids program now helps over 6,500 kids every weekend in 95 elementary schools and Head Start Centers. The cost runs more than $30,000 a month to provide eight to 10 healthy weekend snacks for the participants.

They get items like pudding cups, cheese crackers, "Wow" butter, fruit chews, fruit cups and instant oatmeal packets. Walmart, Tyson and General Mills are among key sponsors; but anyone can help by donating through the Samaritan Community Center Web site, www.samcc.org.

Like the younger elementary students, the newly added Springdale middle schoolers will have a chance this school year to take something home to eat over the weekend.

In successive years, the program will be available in the other school districts, but it is starting in Springdale, which has an unusually large percentage of students receiving free or reduced-cost meals. A single middle school, for example, reports 90 percent of its students participating in the government-funded meal program.

Initially, the program plans to provide food bags to just over 400 Springdale students each week. But the program is supposed to expand first to Rogers next school year, then Fayetteville in 2016-2017 and Bentonville in 2017-2018. In the fifth year, middle schools in Huntsville, Pea Ridge, Greenland, Elkins, West Fork, Farmington, Lincoln, Siloam Springs, Gentry and Gravette will get feeding programs.

School counselors and teachers at the middle schools, like those in the region's elementary schools, will identify students to receive the weekend food. Their weekend supply will initially include multiple packets of oatmeal, dried fruit, rice and vegetables, Wow Butter, and whole wheat spaghetti and spaghetti sauce.

The counselors and teachers decide which students get the help because they are likely to know about a child's home environment, like a parent's being out of work, or may simply observe children eating fast or eating everything in front of them, which may be a sign of inadequate food at home.

Again, this idea of hungry kids isn't something most of the region's residents think about, even though the numbers of students receiving free and reduced-cost meals at school reportedly tops 45,000 in the four corner counties.

Really, only a fraction of them take home those 6,500 SnackPacks for Kids each weekend. Mini Meals will extend the effort to a few hundred more this year and to still more in coming years.

Every meal helps make a dent in the hunger statistics and increases the likelihood that these at-risk kids will return to school on Monday mornings better able to learn.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.

Commentary on 09/21/2014

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