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If you don’t live in Clometrice Henry’s neighborhood, you might not know hunger. She does.
“I have even known them (children) to come to my door and knock, ‘Ms. Henry can I have something to eat?’ That’s just how bad it is,” said Clometrice. She continued, “I don’t turn them down because they are just children.”
Little do the children know, the working mother has trouble feeding her own five children. Her youngest Kylee, 11, shares her mother’s generous outlook.
“You can’t be greedy about what you eat, because you have food that other people would really want,” said Kylee.
Arkansas has a higher percentage of people living one meal at a time than any other state. The Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance reports 1 in 4 children in the state are hungry.
The Henry family is part of the sickening statistic. When food gets low at home Clometrice turns to her church, Life Line Baptist. To her, the church lives up to its name.
“I’ve never been to anywhere where they have a really big heart, they have a really big heart here,” she said.
Cliffton Galyean retired and said he decided to get to work. He’s been running the Life Line food pantry for nearly 15 years. Now, he stares down a bare freezer.
“I don’t need it as much as I did, ‘cause there’s not a stitch of anything in it, “said Galyean.
Empty shelves at food pantries and freezers tell the sad story. The Hunger Relief Alliance reports, demand for food banks is soaring, but less than 30 percent of those who get help from food banks receive benefits from SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and formerly known as food stamps.
“Some people don’t because of pride, they don’t want to feel like they can’t make it on their own,” said Galyean.
The Director of the Growth and Development Clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Dr. Patrick Casey said, “We believe that families who take advantage of these programs, there are benefits to their children that are measurable.”
He continued, “If malnutrition occurs in the first 3 years of life, it increases the chance that the brain may be injured and if the brain is injured it sets the child up with long-term developmental problems.”
He sees about 5 children a week that are underweight come into his clinic. He said people do not use the programs because of the red tape.
“Sometimes the application process is problematic and the paperwork you have to bring,” said Casey.
He said when the Recession hit in 2008, food insecurity doubled in the state in one year. It hasn’t dropped since.
It’s a statistic Galyean feels on his shelves, Clometrice feels in her fridge, and young Kylee wants to help.
“I want other people to feel like I do everyday. My mom helps out a lot and she really provides us with enough food so I feel like other people should feel the same way,” said Kylee.
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