Baptists Fight Hunger—40 years later, FBC Jonesboro still feeding thousands in Arkansas

Welcome to our blog series—At the Table: Baptist Fight Hunger!

Part 11 is by Kathy Holler, minister of special ministries at First Baptist Church, Jonesboro, Arkansas.

The Care Center at First Baptist Church, Jonesboro, Ark., began as a vision of former pastor Emil Williams and former minister of education Marlin Gennings. Both men saw the needs in our community and felt that it was the church’s responsibility to make an effort to address those needs.

They traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to observe a church that had a community ministry much like our Care Center is now. Armed with some concrete ideas of how to flesh out their dreams, they returned to Jonesboro and began setting in place the beginning of the First Baptist Church Care Center Ministry.

That was in November, 1974.

Now, almost 40 years later, the Care Center is still a very strong presence in our community. First Baptist Church made the intentional decision in the mid-1990s to remain a “downtown church,” not to move to the suburbs as other large churches have done.

This decision was made partly because we believe that God has called us to serve in the immediate community surrounding our church campus. A large number of the people we serve are able to walk to the Care Center from their homes in this area.

The mission statement of the Care Center states that we exist in this community to love and minister through feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and reaching and teaching “the least of these.” Our mission statement comes from our understanding of Matthew 25:40 which says this:

“Then the King will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, anything you did for even the least of my people here, you also did for me.”

In past years, the Care Center has offered help in several areas—food, clothing, transportation, help with prescriptions, rental assistance, utility assistance and gasoline purchases. Because of changing needs and changing resources, the Care Center now focuses on hunger issues and clothing assistance.

While it may seem that we have drastically cut the number of services we provide, the number of people we serve has increased dramatically over the years. For example, during a six month period back in 1992, approximately 1300 persons were served. This year, 2013, for the same period, the number exceeded 25,000 persons.

We are beyond blessed in that God has always provided the resources we need to feed and clothe “the least of these” who come to the Care Center.

The Care Center has been staffed fully by volunteers since it began back in 1974. There are presently between 35 and 40 men and women who volunteer faithfully every week to serve this community. They are mostly retired folks in their 60s to our senior volunteer who is 92 years young!

In the summer, we have children who come with their parents or grandparents to serve with us. Our youth and university students volunteer by unloading our food trucks every other Thursday. In my mind, they are extensions of God’s own hands in our community.

They are truly servants of God.

Our food comes from different sources. Some comes from the Northeast Arkansas Food Bank, some from local grocery stores who donate to us such as Kroger, Bill’s Fresh Market, Hardees Restaurant and Panera Bread.

We are blessed to be able to serve so many people because of the generosity of businesses in our community.

Over the years, we have seen and experienced the presence of God in many ways through the Care Center ministry. One year a lady came in to donate clothes. While she was here, she noticed that one of our clients was having trouble finding shoes for her child to start school.

We didn’t have the right size that day.

So the lady donating the clothes felt led to organize a shoe drive. By the time she was done, we had literally thousands of pairs of shoes, all sanitized and tied together in pairs and in separate boxes according to size!

That’s how ministry works, one sees the need of another and responds!

Another time, we were running low on meat to give away when I got a call from Tyson Foods offering to give the Care Center 6,000 pounds of frozen chicken if we could come and get it. The chicken plant was about a two hour drive from Jonesboro, but I quickly accepted their offer and set up a time to go get the chicken!

I was so excited! My excitement quickly changed to working out all the details of getting 6,000 pounds of frozen chicken from a town two hours away to the Care Center in Jonesboro!

Then, there was the small issue of where to store 6,000 pounds of chicken. We owned three upright freezers at the Care Center at the time. I enlisted my dad and another Care Center volunteer (both retired military guys, neither with much patience) to drive a truck that I had rented for them to pick up the chicken.

When they arrived at the chicken plant, the 6,000 pounds had grown to 13,000 pounds! They called and wanted to know what to do… so I assured them we could handle 13,000 pounds of frozen chicken! How could I say no to such a gift? On their return trip, the truck had some problems.

Well, the brakes went out on the truck. They were fine, no accident or injuries, but then there were two very impatient retired military guys sitting on the side of the road with 13,000 pounds of frozen chicken in the back of a truck waiting on a tow truck to come and pull them on to Jonesboro.

In the meantime, another friend who was watching all this take place casually asked me what I thought I was going to do with 13,000 pounds of frozen chicken when it did finally arrive in Jonesboro.

So I asked him, “Who do you know with a large commercial freezer that might be willing to help us out?” He made a couple of phone calls and found a local wholesale grocery business who graciously agreed to store the chicken for us till we could give it away!

His next question was even more direct and challenging. He asked, “Who do you think is going to unload this 13,000 pounds of chicken? I know your dad and Hal are NOT going to help!”

My answer made him laugh loudly and I have to admit it did sound rather bizarre. I told him I was going to call the local jail and see if I could “borrow” a few inmates to come and help us unload the chicken.

After he finished laughing at me and telling me I was crazy, he listened as I made the phone call to the local jail and asked that very question to the man who answered the phone.

There was a long silence and finally the man said. “Mam, this is a very strange request, I don’t see how that can happen.”

I assured him I knew it was a very strange request but that I had some very strange circumstances and that I really needed his help. I asked him to please go and talk to his supervisor and explained the situation to him. He was gone for a while and when he came back, he just said, “He said o.k.”

Well, before they could change their minds, my friend and I jumped in the church van and headed to the jail! We picked up 12 of the nicest young men, all trustees who had made some poor choice at some point and gotten in trouble and ended up in jail. The guys worked hard, unloaded all the chicken and really enjoyed their “time out”!

This long story is evidence enough of God’s involvement in that day.

Not all of our stories are as amazing as the great chicken story, but they all have the same source of blessing. The Care Center ministry could not exist without the presence of Holy God in every area of this ministry!

He is why we can feed and clothe literally thousands of people every year!

We are blessed.

Read more about the Care Center in the Arkansas State University Herald here.

See additional information below about the state of hunger in Craighead County, Ark., courtesy of Map the Meal Gap, a project of Feeding America. Check out statistics for your area with this interactive online tool.