Wake up to the shocking reality: The Samaritan Community Center is on pace to serve 50 percent more people this year, one-third of which have never had to depend on a soup kitchen or food shelf before.
Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2008
Sunday photograph by David Frank Dempsey With more layoffs and a generally slower economy, the staff at the Samaritan Community Center in Rogers is seeing more first-time users of its food-pantry service.
ROGERS — The Samaritan Community Center goes by the motto “ Breaking the Cycle of Hopelessness. ” But even the 250 volunteers who keep the facility running can’t begin to grasp just how much hope is needed until they’ve spent a few days on the job.
“ Before I started here, I had no clue this kind of stuff was even going on in northwest Arkansas, ” said a three-year volunteer at the Samaritan Community Center in Rogers, whose nametag simply reads “ Mike. ”
“ When I worked in the supplier world, I was completely oblivious there were this many people who desperately needed help, ” Mike continued. “ I feel like I need to be here doing this, but I do have to sit down with my wife and debrief at night. There are a lot of people out there who would be shocked to see reality. ”
The Samaritan Community Center, at 1211 W. Hudson Road, operates a soup kitchen and a food shelf, offers counseling services and Sunday worship, and even provides dental services for those in need. In a region that’s been among the fastest-growing in the country over the past decade and is home of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, it’s easy to miss the need in Benton County and the rest of northwest Arkansas. In 2007 alone, the center counseled 8, 365 clients and served 25, 509 meals. Many of these people are homeless or jobless. Others — in many cases, families with young children — don’t have enough income to buy groceries and go with little to no food for several days at a time.
While the 2007 statistics may be surprising, the continued economic slide has brought unprecedented numbers through the Samaritan Community Center doors this year. The center is on pace to serve 50 percent more people in 2008. The most alarming statistic may be that approximately one-third of that 50 percent is a demographic that has never had to depend on a shelter or soup kitchen before. According to Samaritan Center director Debbie Rambo, these are families and individuals who just last year had steady jobs and roofs over their heads.
One need not depend on Rambo’s perspective to get a clear picture of what’s going on. Pull into the center’s parking lot on any given Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and there are multiple examples.
Last Thursday, a taxi rolled to a stop near the main door of the center. A mother stared out the back window, cradling an infant in her arms. She looked down at her baby for a few seconds, then looked out the window again, in the direction of the center. Her bottom lip quivered for a few seconds before she buried her face in her baby’s blanket and began to sob uncontrollably.
A few yards inside the front door, two young men sat on a couch with their faces in their hands. Directly across from the couch, there was quite a bit of movement, as the soup kitchen was beginning to serve lunch. And it was anything but the picture many people might expect. There was a father pushing a plate across the table to his 9-year-old son and figuring out what he could give his infant, seated next to him in a high chair.
There were a few elderly men and women, as well as some single adults, anxiously awaiting the bowl of soup, ham-and-cheese croissant and cupcake that were on the menu. But the overwhelming majority of those in the room on this day were young couples and families. And there was another on the way, as a mother bent down to scoop up her toddler, who had obviously just learned to walk. They, too, were headed into the soup kitchen.
“ I have a job, but my hours keep getting cut back, as the economy gets worse, ” said a Rogers mother of two who asked to remain anonymous. “ People have told me, ‘ Why don’t you get rid of your cable or sell your car ? ’ Believe me, I’ve done all that. When we get home at night, we sit in the dark. We don’t turn on the lights anymore, and we cut cable a long time ago. I’m just trying not to lose our apartment at this point, so we sit in the dark. There are times I still don’t have money for groceries. ”
Her story is a common one.
A husband and wife eating in the soup kitchen told The Daily Record they both had jobs, but their hours had also been reduced. They eat at the soup kitchen at least once each week during their lunch break, but they’re ashamed to tell their two children, who attend school during the day. By going to the soup kitchen when grocery money runs out, they said, they’re are able to keep enough food in the pantry for their children to have a decent dinner each night.
“ If you spend any amount of time here, you can’t help but walk away changed, ” said Jen Boyd, the center’s volunteer coordinator. “ The goal is to offer people hope. There are so many people that just need something to hang on to. They’re scared. It’s difficult for them to even have to walk through that door. ”
“ So many people were and still are living on the fringe — one pay check away from hitting a wall, ” said Ruth Anne Hill, who recently began volunteering at the Samaritan Community Center. “ So with the economy the way it is, there’s some real hurt. If you lose your job or have your hours cut, what do you do ? You have your house payment, car payment, grocery expenses and utilities. What do you cut out ? For so many people I’ve talked to, the groceries end up getting cut because at least they know they can come here and find a meal. ”
With headlines about Circuit City cutting more than 700 jobs, Fannie Mae losing $ 29 billion in the third quarter, Cox Communications cutting 2 percent of its work force and more in the news this week alone, the numbers at the Samaritan Community Center and facilities across the country figure to continue climbing.
“ We’ve talked with 50 people so far today, and 19 of them were new — this was their first time coming to us, ” Bill explained. “ In the past, five new people in a day would have been normal. These people are scared. They need help and don’t know where to turn because they’ve never been in this situation before. ”
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