Like Brigadoon in the 1940s musical, once a year, the M&N Augustine Foundation pops into view in Northwest Arkansas for the annual Easter Feed. Always held on the Saturday before Easter, the all-volunteer event consistently serves more than 6,000 meals in a single day.
That doesn't mean the foundation is in hibernation the rest of the year, though. Established on Nov. 16, 1992, the 62nd wedding anniversary of the late Merlin and Nora Augustine, the organization is working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help Northwest Arkansans who find themselves in catastrophic circumstances.
Go & Do
Trent Trumbo
Memorial Easter Feed
What: A non-denominational community dinner for the homeless, needy, elderly, veterans, unemployed, lonely or anyone suffering economic or personal hardship and those seeking fellowship
When: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today
Where: Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville
Cost: Free
Information: 236-8200; 200-0993; 236-3800 or mnaugustinefoundati…
Additional activities: There will be a prayer breakfast at 6:30 a.m. led by Pastor H.D. McCarty from Ventures for Christ. Easter baskets will be available for children attending the event, courtesy of St. Joseph Catholic Church.
Joe Augustine, the couple's grandson, explains that the organization's primary focus has always been helping people who have experienced a life-altering event -- a house fire, the death of the primary bread winner, a medical emergency, even the need to pay for a family member's funeral and burial. All of those things have always happened all of the time, he says, but "in the last six or seven years, for whatever reason, there seems to be an influx of people decimated by drugs, by hunger, by bad decisions. My own personal soap box is the veterans who fight for our country and come back to nothing -- no family, no job prospects, no place to live."
Augustine sees a lot of those people -- the elderly, the homeless, the veterans -- on Tuesdays, when the foundation hosts a Caring Kitchen meal at 5:30 p.m. at its home at 503 E. 15th St. in south Fayetteville.
"We do have a lot of transient people -- a lot of people that come from other areas of Arkansas," he says. "We're so insulated here, we forget that when you look at the economic opportunities that exist south of Little Rock, there isn't a whole lot going on. The jobs that your grandfather had, and your father had, and you aspired to have -- paper mills and poultry plants and warehousing jobs -- have kind of fallen by the wayside. So people are leaving for the green grass that is Northwest Arkansas.
"But there aren't enough opportunities. People fall through cracks and are lost. They want to work. They want to be part of the community. But they can't get a break."
Augustine also sees the scores of volunteers who prepare and serve food, both at the Caring Kitchen and for the Easter Feed.
"The foundation is unique in the fact that we're all volunteers, and everybody has a story to tell," he says. "For us, it's the legacy of who Merlin and Nora Augustine were. But I hear from so many that the foundation is a place of refuge. Volunteers leave their struggles at the door and are helped by helping their fellow man."
"My father reminded me often of a quote from the scriptures, that I have found to be correct: 'A generous man will be himself blessed, for he shares his food with the poor,'" adds founder Merlin Augustine Jr. "This encapsulates the whole reason that we work so hard to give people from all walks of life an opportunity to serve one another and to share a meal."
The Easter Feed also honors the memory of the late community leader, Trent Trumbo, who was instrumental in helping to start it.
NAN Religion on 04/20/2019