Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Food pantries stay busy with holiday
BELLA VISTA — Three food pantries in Bella Vista are helped families celebrate Thanksgiving this week.
Shepherd’s Food Pantry, located inside the Bella Vista Lutheran Church on Forest Hills Blvd., has been providing turkey breasts and vegetables along with its regular food basket. Since clients are only served one time each month, the Thanksgiving giveaway took place on each Friday in early November.
Organizer John Peshek said the organization distributed fewer meals this year compared to last year. He suspects some of the food bank’s regular clients are elderly and not willing to come out.
Although the pantry set up the distribution as a drive-through for a while last spring, clients recently have been asked to come inside. But since most of the volunteers helping them are elderly, all the safety precautions, including masks and social distancing, have been in use. With the number of cases rising again, distribution will go back outside in December.
Oasis Food Pantry at Village Bible Evangelical Free on Forrest Hills Blvd. distributed a ham and vegetables, in addition to its regular food on Wednesday last week, organizer Tony White said. Some 68 families took advantage of the drive-through, which is slightly more than October.
Both Oasis and Shepherd’s Food Pantry have been getting donations from Harp’s, where customers can pay for a bag of food to be delivered to one of the pantries.
St. Bernard’s Catholic Church also has a food pantry, although it doesn’t get as much publicity, Roxanne Birchfield said. The pantry is open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and clients can only visit once a month. The church distributes up to 30 food boxes a month to people from Jane and Pineville, as well as Gravette and Bella Vista, she said.
The pantry doesn’t do anything special for Thanksgiving, but the St. Bernards Women’s Club puts together holiday meals for needy families that have children at Cooper and Gravette elementary schools. The school counselors provide the names of the families, Christina Laughlin said. All the parish helps, she added.
This year the church is providing meals for homebound parishioners. Other members of the community had the chance to reserve a meal for $15.
The United Methodist Church on Boyce Avenue, just off Lancashire Road, usually serves a community Thanksgiving meal in its fellowship hall. This year, the meals were wrapped up to go, Jan Walton said. The meals were free but donations were accepted.