Why Two-Year Colleges and Two-Year College Students?

The Bread of Life Mobile Food Pantry Initiative is primarily a partnership between First United Methodist Church of Harrisburg and the Arkansas State University Wesley Foundation with secondary partnerships with FUMC-Beebe, FUMC-Marked Tree, and FUMC-Newport.

The Bread of Life Food Pantry began as an ecumenical ministry hosted by First United Methodist Church of Harrisburg, AR but supported financially and through volunteers from half a dozen churches in the Harrisburg area and has been serving the residents of Poinsett County Arkansas since 2007. During that time the Harrisburg food pantry has served over 25,000 families and distributed more than 800,000 lbs. of food.

In 2015, the Bread of Life Food Pantry and First United Methodist Church entered into a partnership with ASU Wesley Foundation to expand the reach of the food pantry with the launch of a mobile food pantry which takes the food pantry to two-year colleges in Northeast Arkansas.

Why two-year colleges and two-year college students?

Two-year College Students are often non-traditional age college students who are either first-generation college students or students returning to college seeking to make a better life for themselves and their family. As college students they are often in class during the times when a local food pantry may be open. Typically they are holding down one or more jobs in addition to being college students. With the rising cost of college tuition and expenses and despite student financial aid they often struggle just to get by.

In recognition of the problem of childhood hunger and food scarcity and in response to the Conference’s 200,000 Reasons Initiative our ministry also uses the mobile food pantry to deliver food to the Harrisburg schools’ weekend backpack feeding programs.

Our goals are:

·  To help relieve a bit of the burden two-year college students face.

·  To help people who are trying to help make a better life for themselves and their families.

·  To connect college students in service to other college students and school age children.

·  And to help connect two-year college students to local church resources in their respective communities.

In this joint initiative the Bread of Life Food Pantry in Harrisburg and FUMC-Harrisburg provides its administrative expertise in operating a successful food pantry whereby college students from the ASU Wesley Foundation are engaged in service to other college students.