Little Rock’s Life Line Baptist: Church responds to child hunger in Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK – If you don’t live in Clometrice Henry’s neighborhood, you might not know hunger. She does.

“I have even known (children) to come to my door and knock. ‘Ms. Henry, can I have something to eat?’ That’s just how bad it is,” said Henry. “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, 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 one in four children are malnourished. 

Church there to help

The Henry family is part of the statistic. When food gets low at home, Henry turns to her church, Life Line Baptist Church, Little Rock. 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.

The church reports its food pantry gave food to 363 families in the month of July.

DialLife Line Pastor Jeff Dial said the numbers of those coming to the pantry were up this summer, which he attributes to factors like the economy and gas prices.

He explained the money for this ministry does not come out of the church’s budget. Members give to the food pantry ministry above and beyond the budget. 

“I just think that Jesus said, ‘When you’ve done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you’ve done it unto Me,’” Dial explained, referring to Matthew 25:40. “And we have a lot of hungry people, and we want to do our best to feed them physically and to have the chance to feed them spiritually. And we just have a great group of volunteers. We couldn’t do anything that we do in this church without our volunteers, and they come faithfully every week.”

Cliffton Galyean has been directing Life Line’s food pantry for nearly 15 years. The pantry started nearly 25 years ago as an expansion of the church’s clothing closet.

“We have a system that we talk to them about spiritual food, as well as the material food, but they have a need for both and we try to supply both,” said Galyean.

According to the Hunger Relief Alliance, demand for food banks is soaring, but less than 30 percent of those who get help from food banks receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

‘Pride’ an issue

“Some people don’t because of pride. They don’t want to feel like they can’t make it on their own,” said Galyean.

Dr. Patrick Casey, director of the Growth and Development Clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, said, “We believe that families who take advantage of these programs, there are benefits to their children that are measurable.”

He added, “If malnutrition occurs in the first three 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.”

Casey sees about five underweight children a week come into his clinic. He said people do not use the programs because of the red tape.

“Sometimes the application process is problematic,” said Casey, referring to the amount of paperwork that is involved.

When the recession hit the United States in 2008, food insecurity doubled in the state in one year, he said. It hasn’t dropped since.

It’s a statistic Henry feels in her refrigerator and young Kylee wants to help.

“I want other people to feel like I do every day. 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.