The food drive at the Dickson Street Bookshop collected items during the government shutdown. | Photo courtesy: Olivia Erwin.
Kingfish bar, Ozark Natural Foods, Dickson Street Bookshop and Little Bread Company hosted food drives this month to donate to Fayetteville’s food pantries due to the depletion of funding for SNAP benefits.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were not issued as scheduled on Nov. 1 due to the recent government shutdown. The uncertainty of when the benefits left leaving thousands of Arkansans vulnerable to food insecurity.
According to the USDA, 18.9% of Arkansas is facing food insecurity, making it the “hungriest” state in America. Around 240,000 Arkansans rely on SNAP benefits to eat, according to USAFacts. Single-parent households are the most common beneficiaries of SNAP, meaning children are at the greatest risk of going hungry.
While food pantries and nonprofit organizations are working to combat this crisis, some Fayetteville local businesses did their part to help. Kingfish mobilized their customers and fellow service industry workers to donate canned food. They incentivized their community to donate canned food in exchange for different drink specials. The bar partnered with Feeding Fayetteville & NWA and Liquor Mart to do a food drive through Nov. 9. Dickson Street Bookshop took to Instagram to say, “Snap benefits are ending November 1st, and we think that’s dumb” The store is collecting nonperishable foods from Nov. 3 – 17 to deliver to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank.
Olivia Erwin and Harrison Lowe are close friends with Dickson Street Book Shop owner Suedee Hall Elkins, and it was their idea to collaborate with the bookshop to assist the community. Erwin works in nonprofit development and asked, “What can we do as solo citizens?” and saw that anyone can host a food drive. She asked her husband, Lowe, to reach out to Elkins to collaborate on a food drive.
“Dickson Street is a popular place for low-income or unhoused individuals, and a lot of people feel really safe at the bookshop,” Erwin said. According to Erwin, previous owner Don Chaffel, who passed away in 2023, was a “beacon of good in the community and supporter of Fayetteville.”
“I wanted not only for it to be a place that we could collect donations, but a place that people feel safe to ask for assistance,” Erwin said. By the second day of the food drive, the book shop was able to raise $200, which was 2/3 of its fundraising goal and according to Erwin, “the turnout has been amazing so far.”
“It’s really nice seeing the community care,” Erwin said. “It reinvigorates an optimism in humanity in a way.”
Ozark Natural Foods also hosted an in-store food drive to distribute canned goods to 7Hills Homeless Center, the Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Pantry and the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank. They encouraged shoppers to pick up a few extra items while shopping to help fill the bins. “Your small act of kindness can mean the world to someone else,” Ozark Natural Foods wrote on its Facebook page.
Their donation requests included pantry needs as well as general products such as hygiene products, clothing items and supplies. The Little Bread Company gave out free coffee to those who donated to their food drive. They specifically requested Thanksgiving meal ingredients be donated for Feeding Fayetteville & NWA, who are preparing 300 Thanksgiving meals for the families of EOA Head Start and Children’s House a program that provides services and care to low-income families. The Little Bread Co. also took to Facebook to announce, “starting November 1st, if you’re losing your SNAP benefits and need help with a birthday cake, send us an email.”
The future of SNAP is currently unclear, but Fayetteville local businesses came together to help our community. For more information about SNAP, visit the Arkansas Department of Human Services.