Contest will reopen food pantry
SEARCY — Melissa Allen of Conway came up with a cute way to help counteract the serious problem of hunger, evidenced by the temporary closing of a White County food pantry.
Allen, programs director for the Community Action Program for Central Arkansas, created a contest called Deck the Box. Businesses and organizations are invited to decorate a large box and collect food items for the nonprofit organization’s depleted food pantries in White, Cleburne and Faulkner counties.
The deadline to enter the contest has been extended to Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, we had to close our White County food pantry because we ran out of food,” she said. “Our donations are down, but the demand is also up. The food is just turning around and going right back out the door.”
Allen said the pantry had never previously run out of food in the four or five years it has been open.
Food donations come in, “but we just ran out,” she said. Deck the Box will collect enough food
to allow the organization to reopen the pantry, Allen said.
“That’s all we’re waiting on, is to get the food donations; then we’ll open the pantry back up,” she said last week.
In Cleburne County, food commodities are given out once a quarter to about 175 people, “but throughout the month, we give out 25 food boxes. It’s the same way with White County,” she said.
The White County food pantry, at 1132 Benton St. in Searcy, was open on Thursdays.
Allen said that when the organization was doing home visits, they noticed people often didn’t have enough food.
“Once we started noticing the need for a food pantry, it took a couple of years to be able to open one up,” she said.
Allen said her idea was, “If we could make [donating] fun … and get more people involved, we would be able to get more food.”
The photos of decorated boxes should be emailed to her and will be posted to the Community Action Program for Central Arkansas Facebook page, and whichever box receives the most votes in each county will determine the winner. An overall grand champion will be named among the three counties’ entries, based on the most votes. The winner will be decided Dec. 28.
Also, the food collected from each county will be weighed, and the county with the most food donated will be given a plaque.
“We see an increase in needs around the holidays,” Allen said. When kids are out of school, there is higher food insecurity. “We want to make sure we get enough food to last us through the holidays.”
The food collected will stay in the county in which it is donated, she said.
Although Allen isn’t eligible to win a prize, she made a box.
“I couldn’t miss out on the
fun. I didn’t register mine to win, but I created one called The Giving Tree in my office,” she said.
Myracle White, food pantry coordinator for Conway, joked with Allen that the tree design was “not a box.”
Allen pointed out that the box is behind the tree — canned food is dropped down “the chute” of the tree trunk and falls into a box.
White laughed and said she was just sorry she didn’t have the idea.
She said pantry volunteers made decorated boxes, including the snowman that sits near the pantry.
“It’s really cute,” Allen said. Send photos of boxes to Allen at melissa.allen@ capcainc.org. For more information about Deck the Box, call (501) 269-9351. To donate food specifically to the White County food pantry, call (501) 279-2015.