Story by Mary Katherine Shapiro November 13, 2020

The day that schools closed, parents were panicking. Erica Kelso, a single mom, read parents’ worries on social media and tried to stay calm. She wanted to be optimistic for her four kids. They were excited about the idea of sleeping in and doing schoolwork in their pajamas. She didn’t want them to worry, but she did wonder how long all of this was going to last. 

Many parents were worried about how their kids were going to eat. Of all the students enrolled in the Fayetteville, Arkansas, school district in 2016, 40 percent received a free or reduced lunch every day. These students count on getting a meal at school. The coronavirus pandemic makes feeding students challenging, but the Fayetteville community is getting creative with food deliveries. 

Kelso’s kids are doing their school work online. At the same time, she is working from home. She is an optician at LensCrafters in the Northwest Arkansas Mall, and she is a realtor. She is in her second semester of college, studying pre-optometry. Now she feels like she’s also a teacher, a lunch lady, a custodian, a school nurse and a working mom all at the same time. It is a lot. She usually spends Sunday afternoons cooking and preparing meals for the week. She likes to have healthy foods ready to go in her refrigerator, to save time. 

Her kids qualify for the free and reduced lunch program at school. Kelso took a financial peace course offered by her church a few years ago, which helped her save money and be prepared. She had enough money saved up so that she wasn’t struggling financially when the coronavirus outbreak reached Arkansas. 

LensCrafters was giving all of their employees emergency pay, so even though they were working reduced hours they were being paid like full-time employees. This past week,

emergency pay stopped, and Kelso filed for unemployment. She now receives a stimulus check from the government that she uses for her car payment. She is still able to work as a realtor and had two closings this month, so Kelso has been able to pay her bills. 

With the uncertainty of the economy, Fayetteville food pantries and school lunch pick-up has been a great resource for Kelso and her family. 

“We went through the Fayetteville Outback food pantry drive through last week and got Tide pods for our laundry, canned goods, crackers and peanut butter,” she said. 

The volunteers gave them enough food for a week of lunches and breakfasts for each kid. They loaded the food into their trunk and stood six feet apart the whole time. There was some candy in the bags of food too, but the Kelso kids ate it before they even made it back to their house. 

The first week of school lunch pick-up, they left an hour early. The line of cars stretched nearly two miles from the elementary school. There was so much traffic, cars couldn’t even get through stop signs. It was a jumbled mess. After waiting in line for 45 minutes, Erica heard the news: they had run out of food. 

Erica said she heard people who didn’t qualify for free and reduced lunch were going to the school pick-up because they were trying to avoid the grocery store. The people who really needed food didn’t get it at the sake of other people’s convenience. The following week, the school district fixed the problem by spreading the food out and distributing lunches at five different schools. 

The Kelso family has been going to Butterfield elementary school every Tuesday for the past few weeks. Last week they got sandwiches, apples, vegetables and four half gallons of milk.

The NWA Free Food for Kids Facebook page is one way that people are getting food for their families. 

Russ Kidwell helps run the Facebook page. One of his friends started the page and he wanted to get involved.  “Right now, with having a little bit more time available and not having kids, I wanted to find ways to help people. Jumping into this really gave me an opportunity to do that.”  Kidwell grew up in Kansas, right in the middle of tornado alley. He knows the harm and the fear that natural disasters can cause. He has never experienced food insecurity, but he knows what it’s like to need help in a time of crisis. 

Kidwell along with a few other page admins manage who is added to the group and what posts are allowed. 

A lot of people need food, but have things that prevent them from getting it. Some people work all day and can’t go to the delivery spots, and people with a disability have limited access to pick-up spots. Then there are people who don’t have a car to get there. Kidwell does what he calls “matchmaking.” He has a list of people who need food and a list of volunteers. They go to the distribution spots and pick up food for people who can’t pick it up themselves. He puts these people in contact with each other, making sure their needs are met. 

Kidwell has done a few local deliveries and he likes being able to help people, and seeing the impact the group is making. 

“We want people to know how to get help,” he said. “There are a lot of great resources out there, you just have to know where to find them and that’s what this Facebook group is here for.”

Kelso is a member of this Facebook group too. At first, the idea of doing school at home was exciting to Kelso’s kids, but they are starting to miss their friends. They’re getting tired of being home all day long. Her oldest son, Aiden, is a high school senior. He doesn’t mind missing his graduation, but Kelso still wants to celebrate, and is planning a graduation parade for him. She said Louis, her son, really misses playing baseball with his team and his best friend Gavin. They used to be at each other’s houses every day after school. 

Amy Simpson, principal at Elm Tree elementary school, described the transition to at-home learning as “baptism by fire.” She said that they only had a three day warning before being notified that their school was closed. 

“Everyone is just doing the best they can and trying to figure it out,” she said. “While the academic part of school looks different now, providing meals for the students is nothing new for the Bentonville school district.”

Bentonville school administrators started a program called Every Child, Every Day long before the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Every child gets fed a lunch, even if they haven’t filled out the paperwork to qualify for the free and reduced lunch program,” Simpson said. 

Bentonville schools have fundraisers throughout the year, including selling t-shirts, to pay for meals and ensure that no student is turned away in the lunch line. The district already had an account set aside to feed kids, and now administrators are just having to be more creative in how they do that. 

“No hungry kids at school,” Simpson said. “That’s the goal. And while schools may be closed, they are still taking care of their students.”

During this time of social distancing, it is common to feel isolated and lonely, but Kelso said she hasn’t felt that way. 

“I have a great support system,” she said. “Our neighbors checked on us and made sure we had toilet paper. Then they turned on their grill and let my kids come over to roast marshmallows.” 

Although the circumstances are challenging, Kelso is thankful to spend more time with her kids. Last semester she would go to class at 8 a.m. then be at work by 9 a.m. . After working all day, she had kids to take care of and dinner to make and paperwork for her job as a realtor. 

“Usually we are constantly running around, but we’ve had time to cook more at home, be outside and go for walks together,” she said. They’ve been going for drives for a change of scenery. 

“If we didn’t have all those resources, I would feel really anxious and isolated right now. But because of things like schools distributing food, my single-parenting group at church and our neighbors we are still able to be connected and have our needs met.”

With food pick up for her kids, Kelso hasn’t been worried about how her kids are going to eat. Instead of this being a time of fear and stress, Kelso has enjoyed the slower pace of life and spending more time with her kids.