Texarkana church teams with Harvest Food Bank for summer meals

TEXARKANA, Ark. (KTAL/KMSS) — Classrooms are empty for the summer; for some kids, that can mean their stomachs are left empty, too.

“Hunger doesn’t take a summer break. So we want to make sure that all the kids that are in our area have access to healthy food,” says Camille Wrinkle, Executive Director of Harvest Regional Food Bank.

Their summer feeding program is stepping in to help keep kids fed.

“Even though some of the schools have some feeding programs, some children don’t have access to transportation to get to the school locations,” says Wrinkle.

The meals are served to kids up to 18 years old, with no applications required, at around a dozen locations across Southwest Arkansas and Bowie County.

“Depending on where the sites are located, some are coming in and eat… others are grab and go where they can take meals if they’re more rural they can take meals with them, so there’s a variety of different ways that we get food out,” says Wrinkle.

Life House Church in Texarkana partners with the food bank to serve the Miller County area.

“We got a perfect place to do it with, so we’re kind of central around here and kids have us to come to,” says Barry Resecker, who runs the various food programs at the church.

He and the people he works with see the program as much more than a chance to invite kids inside for a hot meal.

“It’s a opportunity to, you know, get to know the kids and just form relationships if possible. We’ve got a lot of them,” says Resecker.

The food bank expects the program to impact more than 1,000 kids this summer.

“Some of these kids come in once a week, some come in every day, some families, there’s multiple siblings that come in and it just does your heart a lot of good just to see the impact that it’s having and the kids that we’re able to reach,” says Wrinkle.

Most sites are scheduled to give out meals through early August. A full list of locations with dates and times can be found here.