The Family Center Food Bank of the Delta
Project Summary

The Family Center, Inc. in collaboration with the Rural Child Poverty Nutrition Center, is working to reduce food insecurity in children through improved program coordination among Child Nutrition and other nutrition assistance programs. Phillips County, Arkansas is one of many persistently poor counties in the United States.

Community input was received from 74 adults and 192 children in Phillips County for our community needs assessment. Adults came from a broad spectrum of the community from stakeholders, service providers, elected officials, education and community-based providers. Youth who participated in the assessment were from schools, the community, those participating in a summer food service program, and those participating in youth activity groups.

The ultimate goal is to be able to develop strategies to reduce the fragmentation of services of programs like SNAP, WIC, School Lunch and School Breakfast and Summer Feeding Programs. The results of the community needs assessment showed that barriers such as awareness of programs, transportation issues, fear of participation, and gaps in services prevent families with children from participating in the programs. Our coalition proposes to create systems that will identify gaps in services as well as create a referral system to refer families to other programs once a child meets eligibility. We will develop partnerships to increase SFSP such as mobile feeding sites and decrease the negative impact that fear has had on program participation.

The Community Needs Assessment and proposed strategies will serve as guides to aid in doing what is needed to improve the livelihoods of so many families within our community.

Targeted Nutrition Assistance Programs: SNAP, WIC, SBP, NSLP, and Summer Feeding Programs