Second
Street Pantry was founded as a Benton County community outreach ministry of the First United
Methodist Church in Downtown Bentonville in February of 2011. Since that time, we have provided groceries
to feed approximately 40,000 clients in their homes; we have helped over 900
families with benevolence funds; and we have shared over a thousand free hot
dinners with our hungry clients. We are
open 50 weeks a year - every week except the weeks of Christmas and New
Years. We currently operate four
programs as part of this important ministry: food pantry, benevolence, community meals, and snack packs.
This fundraiser is focused on raising funds for our Benevolence Outreach Program.
Many
individuals and families in our community occasionally have short-term funding
needs due to a job loss, a medical emergency, or other life changes. We have a screening process and require documentation of need to determine eligibility for assistance. For those clients who have a shutoff notice
from a utility, our program will provide funds to pay a client’s utility bill via
a check written directly to the utility.
We also provide a voucher written to a local gas station to provide $25
in gas for clients who have immediate transportation needs (a new job, a
medical visit, etc.) Our Benevolence Outreach is available to all residents of Benton County with the exception of Rogers where other another benevolence program exists.
In the two and half
years that we have been monitoring this program, we have helped approximately
900 different families. Of those 900
families, 70% have asked for and received funding from our program only one
time, even though our guidelines would allow them to utilize the program more
if needed. The average client payment is
about $100.
Unfortunately, we continually
turn away clients from this program as our funds do not meet current demand,
particularly in the April-June and October-December time frames. We would like to source additional
funds to help additional clients in need of benevolence.