Choosing between buying food and paying the rent or purchasing medication is a reality for 240,000 Arkansans aged 60-plus. According to a 2014 report from the DHS Division of Aging and Adult Services, 40 percent of older Arkansans experience food insecurity, making Arkansas first in the nation in senior hunger.

Financial hardship, lack of transportation, living in areas with few food stores and mobility limitations are major contributors to these chilling statistics.

“We all have a part to play in reducing senior hunger,” said Tomi Townley, Older Adult Outreach Manager of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. “Building a sustainable statewide initiative first means educating our state about the problem.”

In Arkansas, 21 counties have been designated as food deserts, where people of all ages have difficulty obtaining nutritious meals. But for seniors, who are often isolated and inactive, the problem of receiving adequate nutrition is compounded.

“Our vision is to create a coalition like No Kid Hungry that will pull all the best ideas together with the organizations who can implement them to make big strides in ending hunger among older Arkansans,” said Townley.

Today nonprofits in Arkansas are meeting this daunting challenge with creativity and persistence. Here are 10 innovative local programs and potential national strategies that could be put to work in Arkansas communities.

1. Arkansas Senior Hunger Summit – In October of 2014 the Arkansas Hunger Alliance held the first Senior Hunger Summit to learn from hunger relief experts and share information on the successes and challenges experienced by older people in Arkansas. More than 200 participants shared information about successes and the challenges of senior hunger in their communities.

2. Business Plans for Senior Meal Programs – Jerry Mitchell of Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Arkansas said running congregate meals programs for seniors can be more cost effective when implementing strategies like:

• Negotiating with grocery stores to secure a single food supplier at the lowest cost.
• Monitoring and changing menus to ensure what is being cooked is being eaten.
• Training staff to order efficiently and prepare appetizing food.
• Exploring catering for other community groups and organizations.
• Convenience Store Nutrition – For some rural Arkansas seniors, convenience stores are their only shopping option. Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance is working with these stores to provide nutritious options like fresh fruits and vegetables in rural convenience stores and to use tours of these stores to help seniors make nutritious food choices.

4. Double Dollars – More and more farmer’s markets around the state are participating in the Double Dollars program that allows older people who receive SNAP benefits to purchase twice as much food for the same price at local farmer’s markets. A recent Hunger in America survey said the number one thing seniors want more of is fresh fruits and vegetables.

5. Friends and Neighbors Network – A partnership between First United Methodist Church in Little Rock and the Arkansas Foodbank Network is helping friends and neighbors in a downtown high rise work cooperatively to reduce hunger. FANN Coordinator Elaine Bultena said twice a week 18 households come to the church to unload and distribute about 500 pounds of supplemental food that allows them to have more fresh and nutritional meal options.

For an outlay of about $200 a month from the church, the participants – about half of whom are seniors – have a consistent source of more nutritious food. The participants also hold programs to learn more about nutrition and other issues, and they decide where the small dollar dues they pay to FANN are spent – the last vote gave a donation to the Arkansas Foodbank and funded a community picnic.

6. Meals on Wheels – Area Agencies on Aging and other nonprofits statewide are a part of the national Meals on Wheels network. Home-delivered meals to homebound older people is not a new idea, but enhanced menu options and modern meal preparation allow more nutritious meals to be prepared and served to those who welcome the human contact of volunteers along with their hot meals.

7. Mobile Food Markets – Though none are up and running today in Arkansas, groups like the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance are exploring the possibility of mobile food markets that bring the chance to purchase nutritious food to small communities. In this model, a bus run by volunteers takes nutritious food into food desert counties on a regular basis.

8. Senior-Friendly Food Pantries – Arkansas Foodbank, with a grant from Walmart, implemented a program to increase seniors access to food pantries though outreach, designating special senior hours, assisting with SNAP applications, ensuring pantries have foods seniors like and redesigning delivery systems. Phase two of the program is the creation of model Food Pantry sites that exhibit best practices and help train volunteers.

9. SNAP Bingo – Fun and games are used to promote SNAP benefits to sometimes resistant older Arkansans at retirement centers and senior housing units. To get more information out on this government program that helps seniors purchase more nutritious food, the Arkansas Hunger Alliance is playing SNAP Bingo.

10. What a Waste! – The National Foundation to End Senior Hunger’s program in senior centers in Washington, D.C., measures waste from congregate meals to help guide future menu choices and uses food waste as compost for growing healthy vegetables and fruits to supplement meals.

by Dr. Thomas Bruce, professor emeritus, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health

One of my interests over the years has been to explore other people’s giving habits. What I’d really like to know is why people give, but analyses about the reasons for giving always wind up being speculative. How people give is an easier question to answer, since records are kept broadly to document donations.

In some instances the results of giving studies do reflect indirectly on the why question. For example, it is simple logic that financial giving is related to income: the more money you make, the larger donations you can afford to give.

But if one moves away from the actual dollar amount that’s donated, an interesting thing can be seen. As a percentage of income, the more you make, the less you give. For example, IRS records document the contributions of all Americans. One can take a standard deduction or itemize the deductions if desired. This discretionary income and charitable giving data is available here in an interactive tool created by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

Consider just the data for Arkansas… family households in 2012 with less than $25,000 in annual discretionary income (that portion left after paying taxes and basic food/housing costs) gave 12.36 percent for charitable purposes. Those with more than $200,000 in annual discretionary income gave 3.50 percent for charity. So it isn’t just a modest aberration, it’s big!

And at income levels in between, one finds gradations of the same sort:

• $25,000-$50,000 (6.68% contributions)
• $50,000-$75,000 (5.34%)
• $75,000- $100,000 (4.63%)
• $100,000-$200,000 (4.00%)

What was, perhaps, most intriguing about the study was its geographic analysis. Percentage giving at every income level was higher in the poorest areas of the state (South Central, South East, and East Central regions) than in the wealthiest areas of the state (North West, North Central, West Central). The Central metro area fell somewhere in the middle. The three most generous regions are rural agricultural or forestry zones with sizable African-American populations and some of the state’s most challenging social problems, i.e. high poverty, low educational achievement, and poor health.

This study suggests that giving patterns are socially driven, in considerable part. If one sees needy individuals around on a regular basis there’s a tendency to try to respond, whereas those who live in more affluent neighborhoods seem to spend discretionary income more for personal uses, “keeping up with the Joneses,” if you will, rather than helping others.

This also may also explain why Arkansas is commonly rated as one of the most generous states (the “generosity index”), along with other low-income states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana (Utah was rated most generous last year).

To protect privacy, the IRS does not provide information about the specific charities that people supported, so what is known about beneficiaries has to be drawn from other studies. Giving to churches and other faith groups is very high, usually about two-thirds of all donations, and this may be another reason why Arkansas and other Bible Belt states rate high in the” generosity index.” An analysis by New York Times Economics reporter Catherine Rampell, however, showed that religious giving also varies a good bit with income, dropping to 17 percent with higher incomes. Arkansas Community Foundation fund holders gave more for educational and health purposes in 2013 than they did for religion.

Bottom line: understanding better why people give of their time, talent, and resources remains an intriguing interest, and is at the heart of why studies on the nature of benevolence have such important policy implications for Arkansas and the nation.

When the term ‘Renaissance Man’ is used to describe someone, Robert Zunick would have to fall into that category.

He graduated magna cum laude in chemistry yet became a financial advisor. He grew up playing music and now creates Zuni inspired stone carvings in his spare time. When he became a father, Robert began to realize yet another part of himself: he finds great joy in giving to youth and to human service.

Robert said he and his wife started the giving process when their two boys were young.

“We’d sit down as a family every Thanksgiving to decide on how to give to others,” he said. “It was a great exercise to make them think about what to support. Now that they’re grown, we see them giving freely.”

One of his pet projects is Hot Springs Area Community Foundation’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC), where he has served 12 years as a youth advisor.

“It’s encouraging to see teenagers embrace philanthropy so naturally. So many people complain about young people and their occasional shortcomings, but after one hour watching these kids your faith in humanity and our future is fully restored!” One of the other organizations his family fund has supported is Jackson House, a crisis center that helps folks down on their luck and helps kids from going hungry.”

“I believe Woodrow Wilson sums it up best: There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed,” Robert said. “In this time we have on earth, we should make it a better place. We have an obligation to do that.”

We partner with people like Robert to talk about their goals for charitable giving and how we can make those goals a reality. If you’d like to schedule a time to talk with us, please don’t hesitate to reach out via email or give us a call at 501-372-1116.

As our 2015 fall Giving Tree Grant cycle closes for some of our affiliate offices across the state, we wanted to take a look at the impact that these grants have on small nonprofits making a big difference in Arkansas’ communities.

By: Kathy Phillips, Executive Director
Cleburne County Community Foundation

One of the things I enjoy most about working at Cleburne County Community Foundation is not only helping our patrons direct their charitable giving, but in getting to see the result of that giving in our own community. The “put-your-money-where-your-HEART-is” kind of impact is always the highlight of my year.

As an affiliate of Arkansas Community Foundation, one way we are able to make such an impact is through participation in the Giving Tree program. The Community Foundation holds both a fall and a spring grant cycle in the affiliate offices across the state, and in Cleburne County, we participate in the spring grant cycle.

Each year, the grant requests highlight the needs in our community and allow us to make a difference. In April of this year, the Community Foundation gave more than $20,000 in grants to alleviate these needs. One of those grants was to support a local domestic violence shelter, Margie’s Haven House. Haven House has been described as “more like a home than the standard vision of a shelter.” The shelter offers victims and their children shelter and all the other necessities that go along with it.

The Giving Tree proposal explained their need in detail. They requested funding to help purchase furnishings for the childcare area of the shelter. They explained that community members of Victims of Domestic Violence with children (both clients staying in Haven House, as well as clients that are not staying in Haven House) may be reluctant to attend support group meetings, and/or reach out to the Haven House due to concerns for a healthy, safe, comfortable environment for their children.

The grantmaking committee reasoned that meeting this need for Haven House would not only help their clients, but could potentially have generational consequences. They knew they must help with this request. The request was small – only $900 – but its ultimate impact could be huge. We will also continue to partner with Haven House throughout this fiscal year, as they have been selected as our Community Leadership Designee for 2015-16. In other ways, large and small, we hope to help them fulfill their mission. Past Community Leadership Designees have received help with event promotion, creation of PSA’s, support for Christmas food boxes and toy drives, and even assisted with landscaping at a new office. Whatever extra support we can offer, depending on the organization’s need, we try to go the extra mile for each year’s Community Leadership Designee.

These are the kinds of projects we love to fund each year in our Giving Tree grant cycle – projects that make an impact. This is “Smart Giving to Improve Communities.”

Read more about our Giving Tree.

We’re excited to welcome Carolyn Blakely, Ph.D., to the position of chairwoman of the Arkansas Community Foundation board of directors. 

Here’s what Dr. Blakely had to say about why giving back is a priority in her life:

“Having been born in a small town in Arkansas, Magnolia, and brought up by a grandmother who had reared four grown sons (one of whom was my father), I became the ward of that grandmother after my mother died.

My grandmother was determined to nurture and protect me, but at the same time she modeled and taught me that although we were poor, we had many blessings that some others did not enjoy. Therefore she introduced me to the wonderful feeling of empathy and love that resulted from giving to others and helping to make life a little better for them.

The joy that she had as a result of making a pie for someone, providing flowers for the church, being a “grandmother” to other children in the neighborhood, giving from what little money she had to charitable organizations made her look radiant because she felt that she had a purpose for her life. Her lifestyle was infectious and convinced me that it really did feel better to give than to receive.

Hence, I have spent both my personal and professional life responding to my need and desire to have some kind of positive impact on the lives of others in any way that I can. I am convinced that the success of our communal environments is dependent on the members of that community and each member’s commitment to improving the quality of life for the majority, rather than focusing on small segments.

By the way, my grandmother lived to be 105 years old, at which time she was happy and satisfied that she had “cloned” herself in me and that I would carry on her charitable work.”

Fulfilling her commitment to give back, Dr. Blakely has served or currently serves on the following Boards: United Way, Arkansas Humanities Council, Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra Board, Sister Cities Board, Pine Bluff Convention Center Board, Pine Bluff Area Community Foundation Board, Arkansas Schools for the Deaf and Blind Board, Susan G. Komen Board, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield Board, Arkansas Blue and You Foundation Boar, UAPB Development Board, and Arkansas Community Foundation Board.

Learn more about the tools that we have for people who love to give. Schedule a visit to talk with us about your charitable goals.

This fall, dozens of Arkansas students will pursue their higher education dreams with financial assistance from scholarship funds managed by the Community Foundation. Congrats, 2015 scholarship recipients!

The Haskett Jacoway Scholarship was established by the late Mary Helen Haskett Jacoway (1916-2011), a Little Rock Central High School graduate who loved education and volunteering. Her niece, Ann Ivey, recalled, “She was not able to go to college herself, and that was her desire – she wanted to be able to help others go and thought a scholarship would be a good use of her money.”  After a career in medical records at the V.A. hospital at Fort Roots in North Little Rock, Jacoway went on to an active second career as a volunteer at St. Vincent Infirmary, logging almost 4,000 hours of service.

Celebrating Jacoway’s commitment to learning and giving back, the Haskett Jacoway Scholarship is awarded annually to a Central High graduate who has shown dedication to volunteerism and school activities, while maintaining a minimum 3.5 grade point average.   

This year’s recipient, Yvonne Dominguez Matadamas, shares Jacoway’s love of volunteerism. “I feel like helping others is important because not everybody has the same opportunities,” she said. “I know my parents struggled while I was growing up. I want to be the help for others that I wish had been available for my parents.” Dominguez plans to attend the University of Arkansas, where she will major in chemistry. Her ultimate goal, she says, is “to become a doctor and help people in my Spanish-speaking community.” While attending Central High, Dominguez interned at Baptist Health and participated in the French Club, National Honor Society and Beta Club.

“I’m very pleased that Yvonne was this year’s winner,” said Ann Ivey. “She’s just the kind of student my aunt would have wanted to receive this scholarship.”

We’re honored to partner with the local families, businesses and individuals who have created these scholarship funds to invest in Arkansas students.  Each scholarship has its own special story, encompassing the lives of the people who create and inspire the scholarship and the people who benefit from its support.

Bonita Crabtree speaks warmly of her late husband, Dr. William “Bill” Crabtree. They met on a blind date, married one year later and celebrated nearly 60 years together. But their storybook—albeit humble—life together was not without its struggles. Their personal triumphs are ultimately what stirred a desire to help others.

After working a few years as PE instructor and basketball coach in Pleasant Plains and Cave City, Ark., Bill decided to follow his dream and moved his young family to Memphis to study dentistry. A congenital kidney disease almost kept him from graduating and passing his state exams, but a fiery determination kept him on track. Dr. Crabtree was a beloved dentist and community leader in Paragould for nearly 50 years, coaching little league baseball and refereeing basketball games.

Bill battled cancer twice and ultimately lost his life to lymphoma. When he was too ill to travel commercially, the nonprofit organization Pilots for Christ flew him to and from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The couple often discussed philanthropy and a desire to give back to the organizations that helped them. Bill quoted one of his dental school professors, saying “with privileges, come responsibilities.” Bonita states her belief simply: “Leave things better than when you came.”

With the counsel of trusted friend Bill Fisher, Bonita created two endowments at Arkansas Community Foundation of Greene County. The Dr. William Lee and Bonita R. Crabtree Dental Scholarship Endowment honors her husband’s memory and “eases the financial pressure for dental students so that they can focus on their studies.” The Bonita R. and William L. Crabtree Endowment will also leave a permanent legacy to other organizations that were close to their hearts, including Pilots for Christ.

Your charitable giving is an expression of your values and life experiences. You can provide long-term support for organizations that have supported you during times of struggle in your own life; Arkansas Community Foundation can help.

Contact us to find out how you can begin your charitable legacy today.