Shirley school food pantry open to all

SHIRLEY — The Shirley School District’s food pantry has a new location, but the pantry’s mission is the same — to serve anyone in the school or community who is hungry.

Angie Williams, paraprofessional with the Alternative Learning Environment, has been working with the food pantry for 17 years.

“I think it’s something good that not only benefits our kids, but it’s a communitywide thing, too,” Williams said. Although there are food pantries in Van Buren County, “we’re it in Shirley, as far as I know,” she said.

The pantry was recently moved from the basement of the auditorium to the superintendent’s office in the former high school. Old wooden lockers have gotten a second life as storage space for the food items.

Kim Graddy, who is Williams’ sister, is the district secretary. The food pantry, which is open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, is right outside her office. Having the pantry available yearround is one of the reasons it was moved.

“I’m ready and available to hand a box,” Graddy said. She said she often gives out six to eight food boxes each Tuesday and Thursday.

The pantry was a project started in about 1998 with an Alternative Learning Environment class,

Williams said. After several teachers left or retired, Williams was asked by Superintendent Tyrene Gardner, then curriculum director and elementary principal, to oversee the food pantry.

Although some of the ALE projects went by the wayside, the pantry was one that students and Williams were passionate about keeping, she said. However, it’s now more of a schoolwide project.

Williams said the boxes are full of “a little bit of everything,” including boxed dinners, canned meat, vegetables, canned fruit, cereal — “anything we can get that’s nonperishable.”

A deep freezer is available, and Williams said a man contacted her about donating 100 pounds of deer meat.

Donations are received from the Arkansas Rice Depot as well, Williams said.

Graddy said area churches and other groups donate food and money to the pantry. One of the high school service-learning classes comes over and helps make up boxes and put groceries away, and volunteers also help prepare boxes for Thanksgiving and Christmas, she said.

Boxes at Christmas and Thanksgiving include everything needed to fix a holiday dinner, Williams said, plus items for the students who are out of school.

“We also have a backpack program,” Graddy said. “If requested, we can send a backpack [of food] home with a student on the bus, or a car rider,” she said.

Williams said the backpack program is just getting off the ground, and she wants to expand it to reach more students.

“Right now, there’s not a whole lot [of students] we’re doing a backpack for,” she said. “We’re working on trying to get the backpack program up and running like it needs to be.”

Graddy also emphasized that the food pantry is for city residents, too.

“You don’t just have to have a kid in school; if you need it, you can have it until it’s gone,” Graddy said. The project is not meant to provide weekly groceries, she said, but it’s to supplement families’ meals.

Williams said there aren’t qualifications to receive food from the pantry.

“The way we look at it, who are we to judge they don’t need anything?” she said.

Monetary donations may be mailed to the Shirley School District, 199 School Drive, Shirley, AR 72153. For more information, contact Williams at (501) 723-8192 or Graddy at (501) 723-8191.

“Donations are always welcome. We’ll take food; we’ll take money. We’ll take whatever they can give us,” Williams said. Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 3270370 or tkeith@arkansas online.com.