Kim and Dan Meatheany

Russellville Manna House volunteers help ‘spiritually, nutritionally’

Kim and Dan Meatheany stand outside Manna House, the food pantry operated by First United Methodist Church in Russellville. The couple serve as supply coordinators for the outreach. The church plans to raze the current facility and rebuild on the same property, 312 S. Boulder St., in 2020. A temporary location will be set up when construction starts, Kim said.
Kim and Dan Meatheany stand outside Manna House, the food pantry operated by First United Methodist Church in Russellville. The couple serve as supply coordinators for the outreach. The church plans to raze the current facility and rebuild on the same property, 312 S. Boulder St., in 2020. A temporary location will be set up when construction starts, Kim said.

Kim and Dan Meatheany helped give food to 20,000 people last year through Manna House in Russellville, but showing kindness to the people they serve can mean just as much, Kim said.

“Some people will just start talking and telling their stories,” Kim said. “One little lady came in, and she was just crying. She said, ‘I’m having a hard time; I’m having health problems; I don’t have any money for my groceries.’ Sometimes you just know you need to take somebody’s hand and say a little prayer. When we finished, she put her head up and said, ‘I feel better now.’”

The food bank, which serves Pope and Yell counties, is an outreach of First United Methodist Church, where the Meatheanys are members. The food bank is located in a small house at 312 S. Boulder St., across from the church.

The couple both retired in 2014 — Dan from Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville, where he worked for 33 years — Kim from the Russellville School District, where she was an educator for 32 years. She started out in special education and ended her career as an instructional facilitator.

“I was always for the underdog,” Kim said. “I always felt like I served kids who were needy, and now it’s families who are needy. We volunteered with Manna House throughout our careers just doing different things when we could when we weren’t working.”

The couple became supply coordinators for the food bank about two years ago when the woman who helped start the food bank with a former pastor took a well-deserved break, Kim said.

“Mona Goodman, who had been doing this job for [17] years, decided she needed to move on, and Dan and I just really, really prayed about it and thought about it and said, ‘We can do that.’

“We had some big shoes to fill,” Kim said.

Goodman said the church decided to start a food pantry and set up a board. Manna House started in 2000, she said, and former pastor Clefton Vaughan asked her to shop for all the food.

“I went from one shopping cart to two, to three, to four; then I couldn’t get it all in the back — I had an

Expedition then — I couldn’t get it in one trip anymore,” Goodman said, laughing.

The Meatheanys started volunteering to pick up food; then they started filling in when Goodman traveled.

Goodman said lifting items, like the 50-pound bags of rice, became more difficult, and she wanted to spend more time with her 10 grandchildren. She said it was a natural progression for the Meatheanys to take it over.

“I loved every minute of it. I saw it grow from 50 people a month to 2,400. It was a nice thing to experience and be a part of,” she said.

Goodman said the Meatheanys were the right ones to continue the work.

“They’re wonderful people, and it’s definitely been a wonderful blessing to see them carry the torch,” Goodman said.

Kim said she and Dan spend 15-20 volunteer hours a week with the food bank. She is quick to point out that they are part of a team.

“We have 75-80 volunteers who cycle through on a monthly basis,” she said.

Five volunteers were working in a hot garage earlier this month, getting things ready for a distribution, and Dan was mopping.

“We do the behind-the-scenes work and make sure other volunteers have what they need when the doors are open, that it’s fully stocked. … It’s a well-oiled machine,” Kim said.

“The church and other community organizations support us. It takes us about $10,000 a month to run Manna

House,” she said, which includes buying food from the Arkansas Food Bank and a local grocery store. The volunteers also pick up leftover produce, bread or meat from Russellville businesses that are part of Feeding America, a relief organization.

“Tyson supplied us 48,000 pounds of meat last fall,” she said, and Zero Mountain, a freezer-storage company in Russellville, is storing it. They get a pallet at a time for the walk-in freezer at Manna House. “We are the only food bank [in Russellville] that gives hygiene items — shampoo, toothpaste and toilet paper; bags of laundry detergent.”

From filling rice bags and putting laundry detergent in individual bags, there is a lot that has to be done before distribution, Kim said.

“You don’t have to go to our church to be involved at all. Lots of organizations help. We’re involved with [Arkansas] Tech [organizations]. You say Manna House, and they say, ‘Oh, we need service hours,’” Kim said. “Everybody loves this mission, and everybody knows how important it is. We’re always trying to help organizations get their service hours, and they love to serve people like we do.”

She said the number of people Manna House serves is likely to go up after the River Valley Food Bank closed this month because of lack of funds.

“With the River Valley Food Bank closing, I think we’re going to see an influx, a need,” she said.

“We serve about 20,000 [people] a year, which is unreal, because Russellville only has about 28,000 people. Last month, we had 350 new families who came,” Kim said. Those 20,000 people represent 245,000 meals last year, Kim said.

The food bank has been open from 10 a.m. to noon Monday through Thursday, as well as 6-7 p.m. Wednesdays, to accommodate people who work during the day. Beginning in October, it is going to start opening from 10 a.m. to noon Fridays, in addition to the other days.

“We’re going to give that a go,” Kim said.

A bigger change is coming in 2020 — Manna House is getting a new

facility.

“We’re going to take this one all the way down to the ground and keep the location, and we’ll have a temporary location,” she said. “We’re really excited about that.”

Kim said Manna House will go through the Arkansas Food Bank and write a couple of building grants, “and we have a couple of people (construction-business owners) in our congregation who have pledged part of the building side.”

Construction is estimated to take six months, she said.

Manna House allows Help Network, a nonprofit, faith-based organization that assists low-income families, to use two rooms in the house for free, Kim said. She said the new building will have space for that organization, too.

Dan said he enjoys volunteering with Manna House because “it’s just the idea of being able to help those who can’t help themselves. We’re here to help the people who are food insecure. It’s a good project that does do things both physically and spiritually for people, and it’s just something we enjoy doing.”

Kim agreed. “We say we have a two-fold goal — to help people spiritually and also nutritionally. We also have prayer-request cards, if they are really worried about family members or are in dire straits.” They can write down their concerns and the cards are taken to the church for the congregation to pray for.”

Dan said many of the people they serve “are kind of between jobs or they’ve had a health issue,” and they need help temporarily.

“They’re proud people who just can’t make it for a particular reason,” Dan said. “A lot of times, they’re embarrassed to come in, but they feel like they have to. We just try to comfort them.

“There was a gentleman today who drove north of Dover to get here because he didn’t have any food. Normally, we weren’t open on Fridays, but we went ahead and served him. It was a family of three.”

Kim recalled a mother who came in with her 6-year-old son, and it was his birthday. She asked if the food bank had any cakes.

“Some volunteers in the back found a cake and got some other goodies together. They went out, sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ It just made his day, and the mom sat there with tears streaming down, because that’s something she wasn’t going to be able to provide for him,” Kim said.

“I feel blessed that I can get up every day and make a meal for my family and then come here and give other people that chance,” she said.

And there’s another story that touched her heart:

“One day I was here stocking by myself, and I hadn’t locked the front door, and I heard the bell ring, and I walked up to the foyer,” Kim said. “I started to say, ‘We’re closed right now.’ If we’re here, we will serve, but I was by myself.

“There was a woman sitting in the chair with her head down. I said, ‘Oh, how can I serve you?’”

The woman said one of her neighbors had broken into her apartment and stolen her food and $50 she was saving toward buying a car.

“I said, ‘I’ll fill your cupboards back so you’ll have some food.’ But I told her, ‘I want you to give this piece of paper to your neighbor,’” Kim said

It was the hours the food bank is open. “I said, ‘Leave it on his front door. If he says anything, tell him now he doesn’t have to break in and steal anybody else’s food.’

“We’re nonjudgemental, and we serve anybody in need,” Kim said.

Kim said the woman told her, ‘I appreciate that.’”

“You know what it is? It’s the hope. Showing human kindness is really what this is all about. People who come in walk out and feel a little bit better, knowing that people care — and they have hope,” she said.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-5671 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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