During the pandemic, Answering the Call (ATC) has delivered nearly 50,000 meals in just under two years to people affected either by illness or lack of work related to Covid-19. That works out to nearly 68 people in our area receiving one meal every one of those days.
“That may sound like a lot, and it is, but it pales when you consider that about 1,000 people in the Western District alone of Carroll County are food insecure,” ATC volunteer Bill Featherstone said.
ATC has seen a decline in demand for food because of Covid-19 disruptions. But that work has opened the eyes of the volunteers to the large number of people in the Eureka Springs area who are food insecure in ways not related to the pandemic. Starting Wednesday, March 16, ATC is beginning a partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank (NAFB) to provide a mobile pantry with 150 boxes of food being provided on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 10 a.m. at the First United Methodist Church on Hwy. 23 South (195 Huntsville Rd).
“Anyone in need is eligible, including people receiving the ATC meal deliveries,” Featherstone said. “There will be a handful of questions people will have to answer. They are not real involved questions. You stay in your car, and it should take less than a minute to drive through. We have no idea how many people will show up the first week. We may have 50 or 300. We will gauge it and adjust every month. You don’t have to live in Eureka or even Carroll County. You don’t have to prove any need, financial or otherwise. If you are in line, you get a box. We will deliver for people without transportation.”
ATC and NAFB will continue offering food boxes on the second Wednesday of each month.
While Covid numbers are on a downturn, area residents are being adversely impacted by inflation, particularly soaring costs for gasoline, food and utilities. Featherstone said if inflation continues, as experts expect, food prices are likely to continue to increase.
“The need for food is going to grow,” Featherstone said. “It may even surpass the need for food at the height of the pandemic. People have to make choices. Do I pay the rent or buy more food? Do I buy the prescription medicine I need or food? Do I buy nutritious food or scale down and buy junk food?”
As ATC volunteers have done deliveries, particularly in remote areas of Carroll County, they have seen there is a need for food that was there before the pandemic and will be there after the pandemic.
“It has been a real eye opener for all of us,” Featherstone said. “About 13.1 percent of households in four-county area that NAFB serves were food insecure in 2019 and 16.6 percent of households in all of Arkansas were food insecure in 2019. About 10.5 percent of households in the U.S. were food insecure in 2020. Based on numbers from NAFB and Feeding America, there are about 82,000 people in the four-county area served who are food insecure. If you take the estimated population of the Western District and extrapolate from that, 1,000 or more people on our side of the river are food insecure. I would guess that would bother most people in Eureka if they were aware. That’s a huge chunk of our community.”
Food insecurity can range from not knowing where your next meal will come from to choosing to eat food that is low in nutrition because more expensive food is not affordable.
The Flint Street Fellowship food pantry and Cup of Love in Eureka Springs have been working to provide food to the needy for years. Featherstone said the new mobile food pantry will be another way to address the problem. ATC is also working with the Flint Street Fellowship, and possibly other partners, to establish a food distribution center in Eureka Springs to give people easier access to food.
ATC also continues to need drivers for food deliveries. Featherstone said people are not committed to driving every week. Most people drive every two or three weeks.
“It is a very limited commitment on anybody’s part,” he said. “It is so good to get as many people involved in this as possible. One reason is to always have enough drivers. Two, when people deliver, with their own eyeballs they see the need for food out there. We all kind of live in our own circles with a limited field of scope. When you see how people are struggling, it makes a believer out of you that we have to ramp it up and figure out better ways to help people. And the third benefit is working together has really helped the community spirit. It is so positive working together for a common cause.”
To volunteer as a driver, text Featherstone at (479) 981-1991.