“What efforts do we want to support in a sustainable way? What opportunity should we be exploring as a new way to combat hunger in our community?  Those are key questions Arkansas Community Foundation affiliates ask before every grant cycle of their Stop Hunger Funds.

When Aspire Arkansas data first came out in 2011, and before that in 2008 when an Arkansas Community Foundation Stop Hunger online initiative helped food charities during the recession, several of the 28 Arkansas Community Foundation affiliates determined that the fight against hunger would be one of their priorities.

Dick Freer, chair of the Craighead County Community Foundation Hunger Committee, said their goal is to build relationships where there is food insecurity, boost community support for the need and become a catalyst for making change.

Three Hunger Committee members went to the Student Council at Success Achievement Academy, a Jonesboro alternative school, to ask about hunger. “We got blank looks at first,” said Freer. “But the initial discussion got students thinking about their peers who were food insecure and eventually turned into a Food Race where students bring food to supply a food pantry on campus.”

“The Aspire Arkansas data was a catalyst for our stop hunger efforts,” said Freer. “It raised the level of awareness about the issue and identified hunger as one of the most pressing needs in our area. If we use our $8,000 to $9,000 a year in grant money to fund innovation, we can really make a difference.”

Many in Craighead County are realizing how much good could happen if fresh fruits and vegetables were more affordable to low income citizens. A physician on the committee came up with the idea that doctors could prescribe fruits and vegetables to low income patients so they could be reimbursed for the money they spend on these healthy foods.

The Craighead County affiliate has been instrumental in setting up the second Friends and Neighbors Network in Arkansas. A national FANN staff member from Atlanta trained volunteers to develop a community of people who are food insecure. These FANN members meet twice a month to unload and distribute healthy food that provides them an ongoing source of supplemental nutrition.

 “The Truck Patch, an organic food store in Jonesboro, has worked with our FANN,” said Charles Harris, FANN coordinator.  “Their generosity has added to the quality of food we can distribute.”

Some of their grants fund more traditional hunger programs. For instance, students in the Jonesboro Hispanic Center’s after school program enjoy healthy snacks like a choice of peanut butter crackers or apples and milk courtesy of a Community Foundation grant. A review of food pantries receiving grants that ensured minorities were represented led to a connection with New St. John Missionary Baptist Church food pantry.

Jennifer McCracken, executive director of the Cross County Community Foundation, said most hunger-related grants are determined by their local advisory board. For every grant they are able to make in the fight against hunger, they get 20-25 applications. About 70 percent of their hunger-related grants go to food pantries and backpack programs.

Their official Stop Hunger grants are awarded by the Youth Advisory Council. “It is good for youth to be a part of this,” she said. “The hunger grants give our young people a sense of making a difference where the need is great.”

Recently, the Cross County affiliate began working with a new nonprofit, 363 Feed the Need, led by Phoebe Curtis and Julie Boone. “We are tackling the problem of hunger through a backpack program and an event called The Table, where we served 400 plates of food to a diverse mix of people at an Interfaith event in Wynne,” Curtis said. “Lots of people help the hungry on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We want to help the other 363 days of the year.”

The 363 backpack program started in January of 2016 with 34 students and now they are stocking 125 backpacks each Friday. The cost is about $150 per child for the school year. Volunteers, youth groups and others pack the food that goes home with students on Friday afternoons at Wynne Primary, Intermediate and Junior High. Soon, they’ll be scheduled to work with the local high school.

“Access to weekend food relieves stress about where the next meal will come from. It helps alleviate mental, physical and emotional stress,” said Curtis. “The Community Foundation here has made a big impact with grants to us and others who work to stop hunger. There is no way we would be able to do our work without them.”

Dana Stewart, executive director of the White County Community Foundation, said the affiliate has

been working on food insecurity programs for more than a decade. They have made grants to Beebe School District’s Badger Family Food Pantry and to senior programs like the Bald Knob Senior Center. “At Bald Knob like most rural programs, volunteers who run the center do the grant writing, cooking – they do everything,” Stewart said.

Because the White County affiliate knows ending hunger will be difficult, they made a grant to purchase shelving to help sustain the program rather than only purchasing food and promoting smart shopping training that shares tips like buying dried beans instead of canned to stretch the budget.

“When we look at the Aspire data and other research, we see that hunger continues to be a real issue for our county,” Stewart said. “We may not have the numbers some other counties have, but in our local school district in Searcy, 40 percent of the students are on reduced or free meals. So this is not just a rural problem for us.”

A recent grant was made to Della’s Panty in a rural part of White County. Della Pantry volunteers told these stories:

“One of the things that strikes me the most is the percentage of our families who are older and are raising grandchildren. I would estimate that nearly 25 percent of all the families that visit our pantry are senior adults with at least one grandchild in their care. They live on a fixed income and struggle to provide for the children so they are resorting to visiting our pantry for help.”

“It’s sad how so many folks are struggling to get by right now. We see so many that are barely surviving. I’m glad we are here to help a little and give them someone to talk with. We try to find words of encouragement for them, but sometimes it’s hard to do when we hear of their situations.”

“A lady who has been battling cancer for several years came in today. Her daughter and grandchildren have just moved in with her and her teenage son. Her husband died of cancer about three years ago. She isn’t able to work, and with so many in the house to feed, she is coming to us for help.”

This story is from our November edition of Engage Magazine.

Only 37% of Arkansas third graders read proficiently, according 2016-2017 school year data from the ACT Aspire assessment.

Thirty-seven percent.

A mountain of education research confirms that third grade reading levels are a strong predictor of future success in school and beyond. So what can we do to move these numbers in the right direction?

The Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is working to advance some simple, evidence-based strategies to achieve the goal that every child in Arkansas will read at grade level by the end of third grade. Arkansas Community Foundation has announced a partnership with the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading to make grants targeted at those five strategies. As a part of that partnership, we’re supporting programs the keep kids reading throughout the summer months; we call it our Summer Learning Initiative.

Why does summer learning matter?

When students are away from school over summer break, many of them – especially those from low-income backgrounds – lose as much as two to three months of reading skills. This “summer slide” can set kids as much as three years behind their peers by the end of elementary school.

What is the Community Foundation doing?

Each year for the past three years, we’ve offered funding for communities across Arkansas that are hosting high-quality summer camps that keep kids engaged during the summer months through academic and social enrichment.

What results are we seeing?

We’re seeing exciting results from the communities participating in the Summer Learning Initiative. In Year 1 of the program,

What have we learned?

Not only are these programs having a positive impact on students’ literacy scores; they’re also having a positive impact on behavior and students’ sense of belonging at school, according to the administrators participating in the program. It’s a win-win!

What can you do?

If you’re interested in supporting the Summer Learning Initiative or other efforts to increase reading scores in Arkansas, contact us at 501-372-1116.

Three years ago Danna Blubaugh saw a television news story about AR Kids Read’s immediate need for 300 tutors. She responded by going to the organization’s website and signing up to tutor at McDermott Elementary School in Little Rock. The mother of three young adults, Blubaugh had never been to the school before becoming a tutor.

Brightly colored walls, large photographs of students in action and an outdoor courtyard make McDermott an inviting learning environment. Principal Amy Cooper said reading tutors are an amazing addition to the school even beyond improving reading skills, “We are a school shaping the whole child. Having community volunteers come in helps our students understand what it is to give back and shows them that one day they can give back to children in their community.”

Blubaugh helps students from two second grade classes and has learned that most students see the ability to read chapter books as a big landmark. “The one-on-one experience with tutor creates a safe space for the students to learn,” she said. “Really, it is all about building their confidence.”

Teachers match students with tutors and provide books at the students’ reading levels, but Blubaugh brings a few tools of her own. She uses flash cards to help with word recognition and has found that a sticker book is a great icebreaker because all kids like stickers.

“I had to go online and get a new set of ‘Ranger Rick” because I love that magazine. Everyone likes to talk about animals,” Blubaugh said. “One of the things I like most is that I get to relive teaching my own kids to read.”

It gives her great joy to get to know the students, interact with them and make them better readers. “When they get interested in the story and want to read more and more, that is a success. What we are doing is instilling a culture of reading,” Blubaugh said.

She is not a professional teacher, and that is not a requirement for tutors. They can spend as much time at the schools as they choose since there are different levels of commitment in terms of hours per week. Blubaugh has been very happy with the support she receives, including seminars and packets of information that help tutors be more effective.

“Do it,” is her advice to those on the fence about being a reading tutor. “You get more out of it that you could ever give — the kids are always surprising you.”

After leading two successful businesses, raising kids, serving their community and traveling the globe, Bob and Cynthia East of Little Rock decided to start a fund at Arkansas Community Foundation that will benefit the causes they care about.

“I had looked into starting a family foundation but there was a lot of paperwork involved and it was so much easier to set up a fund at the Community Foundation,” said Bob, chairman of the board of East Harding Construction, which he helped found 43 years ago. “The Community Foundation fund is a good way to have a growing resource that we can use for a long time into the future.”

Bob has a history of service to his community as past chairman of the Little Rock National Airport Commission and a member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation. He is now a board member for the Downtown Little Rock Partnership and the Arkansas Workforce Commission.

But at heart he is an adventurer. He climbed Mount Everest almost 30 years ago, has run with the bulls at Pamplona and floated down the Mississippi from St. Paul to New Orleans. Where was Cynthia? At base camp on Mount Everest, at the end of the course in Pamplona and helping as crew at stops along the Mississippi.

In between global adventures, she owns and operates Cynthia East Fabrics, a 40-year Little Rock institution providing quality, decorative fabrics. Cynthia has served on the boards of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and Volunteers in Public Schools. Her passion is public education, and she’s been a public school advocate since before their two adult children were students.

“My parents were involved in the 1957 crisis and that got me on the right side of the issue. I feel I got a great education, and I want to see that happen for every child.”

The late Kay and E.G. VanTrain had a passion for their community and wanted their charitable giving to have a broad impact.

Sitting at a grant awards ceremony in Cleburne County in 2007, Kay VanTrain wondered why the grants seemed relatively small. The executive director explained that as part of Arkansas Community Foundation, the local office is a part of a statewide network creating endowments and making grants across the state, and that the local board was developing a pool of funds to grant out locally. Kay said, “Well, we want to join!”

The VanTrains recognized the Community Foundation’s potential to serve a wide variety of worthy causes and to protect and grow charitable funds. They had owned several telephone companies across Arkansas, so they used telecommunications stock to establish a fund that would give back to the state where they dedicated their life’s work. The VanTrains liked the idea that a single gift to the Community Foundation could affect the entire community, and they knew that greater impact could be made if the organization had a larger pool of funding for its annual grant cycles.

Their generosity sparked a community-wide challenge to increase grant funds in Cleburne County. In fact, grant awards doubled the following year, and the VanTrain’s legacy continues to impact their community.

Learn more about our affiliate office in Cleburne County.

Lindsey East would have celebrated his 50th birthday this summer. In contemplating her son’s untimely death and this missed milestone, Laetitia East muses that Lindsey is “ageless.” We agree. His giving spirit lives on through his dear friends and family and, in part, through the charitable funds he established while he was alive.

In addition to continuing to support programs like Our House that advocate for Arkansas’ homeless, the East endowments have most recently funded Arkansas Interfaith & Light’s Promise Garden, a collaborative community garden in the 12th Street corridor that encourages fresh local nutritious food, and the Southern Center for Agroecology, a nonprofit that promotes the development of sustainable local food systems through research and applied science.

To honor Lindsey’s legacy and the countless lives he continues to affect, we would like to revisit his Community Foundation story which can be found here:

Even After His Lifetime, Lindsey Robison East’s Giving Makes an Impact

“He was always unique in his sensitivity to people and the environment,” said Laetitia East of her son, Lindsey. “He loved the earth and really felt he could make change happen in the world.”

Arkansas Community Foundation came to know Lindsey East in 2003 when he contacted CEO Heather Larkin to inquire about “what we do here.” Born and reared in Little Rock, he had been living in California, exploring the possibilities of his own talents in theatre, writing and music.  He had a playful humor and spoke from his heart, taking genuine interest in personal stories. When he’d see someone he knew, he’d remember some small thing that showed he listened and took an interest in what they had to say.  Lindsey met all people with total acceptance and had friends from all over the world.

When he returned to Arkansas, Lindsey soon became a personal friend to the Community Foundation. In 2004, he started his first endowment at the Community Foundation focusing on food sustainability and bicycle advocacy.  Five years later he began a second endowment to support initiatives for the homeless in Arkansas. Our House, an organization that provides shelter and education for homeless adults and children, dedicated a playground in Lindsey’s name for his support.

On July 9, 2011, Lindsey suffered a heart attack and died while piloting his small plane. But the legacy he established with the Community Foundation lives on. His final gift to the Community Foundation by way of his trust created an endowment promoting greenhouse projects, community gardens, recycling programs and local food initiatives. About two years after Lindsey’s death, the Community Foundation learned that a new food enterprise, the Farm and Food Innovation Center, was being formed at the former St. Joseph’s Home in North Little Rock by one of Lindsey’s old friends, Jody Hardin. With East’s wishes to support local food sustainability projects in mind, the Community Foundation issued a start-up grant from Lindsey’s endowment to the Center.  

Because of Lindsey’s charitable vision and foresight, the dream of the Farm and Food Innovation Center is becoming a reality. Already the Farm and Food Innovation Center has impacted hundreds of Arkansans, who have visited the grounds as volunteers and participants of local, sustainable food education initiatives. In collaboration with Heifer USA, FFIC works to support Delta growers and empower them to become involved in the profitable local organic food market. In addition, twelve community gardening plots have been constructed with the help Eagle Scouts and 90 at-risk youths participating in the National Guard Youth Challenge program who provided community service hours while learning essential skills in organic gardening and farming.

In East’s memory and honor, a permaculture project on the grounds has been named the Lindsey East Food Forest to Feed the Hungry.

“Lindsey would be so proud of this,” said his mother, Laetitia.  “He will be remembered for giving to the things he loved and believed in. Nothing would make him any happier.”

Jane Hunt’s charitable path has been molded by her family’s practice of encouraging generosity. Her parents J.B. and Johnelle Hunt, well-known for successfully building their trucking company, understood the importance of giving back to the community and raising their children to do the same.

Through the years, Jane has had the opportunity to passionately support a variety of causes. Her generosity has stretched from nonprofits that support education enrichment programs to organizations that help women and children build a stable and successful life. When the Northwest Arkansas Women’s Shelter was on the brink of closing their doors, Jane offered a matching incentive to help them continue their mission providing necessary services. Additionally, through funding prize dollars for ArkansasGives, she has been able to support the invaluable work that the entire nonprofit sector offers our state.

By making Arkansas Community Foundation her partner in giving, Jane believes her role as a contributor has been made easy and more purposeful. “The Community Foundation provides the information I need to make educated decisions about where my charitable dollars are well spent. I feel confident that I have the tools I need to make a difference for the long-term.”