Samaritan Center battles lean times Staff makes donations go a long way
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Lunch is often a surprise at the Samaritan Community Center. Menus for the soup kitchen - open for lunch on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - are never planned more than a day or two in advance because no one knows what might be available.
Bread is donated by Atlanta Bread Company, so a cup of soup may be accompanied by a slice of seven-grain bread. Olive Garden donates surplus food; the cooks at the soup kitchen have been known to recycle it into something completely new. Meatballs may become chili and soup may become a casserole. Food from Sam's Club delis comes to the center via the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank.
Once in a while, nutrition manager Jane Rowland has to buy ingredients for the soup kitchen, but not very often. Samaritan Center uses a wide variety of donations to feed a wide variety of people. They average 120 people a day and, surprisingly, that number didn't go down when kids went back to school this year.
Since becoming independent in 2002, Samaritan Community Center has had one mission: To break the cycle of hopelessness. The programs that have been developed to reach that goal include the soup kitchen, a food pantry, a thrift shop for clothing and household goods, counseling and a dental clinic, according to executive director Debbie Rambo. At times, the center can offer help with utility bills, but when needs grew in the region, that service was cut back. The board chose to funnel the money into the food pantry instead, Rambo explained. That way they can help a larger number of people.
Needs are growing, Rambo said. Over the summer, about 22 percent of the food pantry clients were there for the first time. Many of the new clients were employed, some even came from two-income families. They were people who had been living paycheck to paycheck, and with the rising costs of gas and groceries, they could no longer just get by.
"There's a lot of food going out of here," she said.
The food pantry is open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Volunteers see about 50 to 60 families each day. Every family talks to a volunteer "encourager"who helps assess their needs. They may be referred to one of the center's two social workers who can help find needed services. There are also interns from John Brown University who can counsel clients when the stress gets to be too much.
Families are asked to visit the food pantry only one time a month, but everyone is welcome to a hot meal in the soup kitchen whenever it's open.
While the need is rising, donations have been down - by about 10 percent, Rambo said. Businesses have cut back on the amount they donate and that means that Samaritan Center has been forced to dip into reserves to keep the food pantry stocked.
"Everyone is experiencing the same thing," Rambo said, explaining that she keeps in touch with other nonprofits. All report a drop in donations.
Even sales at the center's thrift store, located in Springdale, are down. People aren't spending as much at the store and they aren't donating as much. Many donors are probably hanging on to things that they might have replaced last year, she speculated. When a big item, like a couch or a washing machine is received, it's often given away to a family with a critical need, Rambo said.
The center partners with Northwest Arkansas Food Bank for a backpack program in 61 schools over the four-county region. That program is growing as is the federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program, Rambo said.
The backpack program targets students who might be hungry over the weekend when they don't get a school lunch. Nutritious snacks are quietly placed in their backpacks on Friday afternoon. Volunteers pack the snacks and drive them to schools each week.
"I'm nervous about utility bills this winter," Rambo said. She knows that people will be calling the center looking for help. Recently she had to turn down a woman who was about to lose her home because she couldn't pay her mortgage. When home heating bills start coming in, that type of call may become more common.
But she's counting on a good holiday season. Schools and churches often run food drives during the holidays. Recently a group of friends started a series of neighborhood food drives that promise to be a new source of food.
The Bentonville Noon Rotary Club has been collecting food for the snack pack program regularly, Rambo said.
Volunteers also run the dental clinic, but there's never enough skilled people to fill all the needs, Rambo said. People call the center in pain, and they have to wait to even schedule an appointment, she said. She would like to put more dentists to work in the clinic.
"The most difficult thing we do here is to turn away people who are in pain," she said In spite of challenges, Rambo is an optimist.
"Once things calm down," she said," it'll be all right."
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