Hope Outreach Food Pantry

Hope Outreach Food Pantry began with the church picking up Angel Food Boxes to distribute to the church and community. We stored the items on a few shelves at the Thrift Store and soon realized the need was larger than we thought. We saw quickly that our money could buy more food with the help of the Arkansas Food Bank and began paperwork to allow us to participate in the Arkansas Food Bank program.

We then built a 400 square foot building right next to the Thrift Store and began our monthly food give-out days. We out grew the building before we even got inside of it but made it work till Father God had a divine appointment with Dorothy Morris a local philanthropist who took us under her wing and helped us raise enough money to build a 4000 sq foot building to house the pantry, allowing space to warehouse the food as well as a place for the local community to meet.

It is truly a work of love, not only from the church members but from the local community as well. Many churches and individuals helped in building, donating, and opening the building. With Dorothy’s help, we moved into the building debt-free. It is run by the community, with local churches and individual monthly donations supporting it.

COVID closed our community room in the building, turning it into more storage space for the food drive. We now have drive-by food pickup on the second Thursday and fourth Saturday, 8-11 each month. With our clients choosing one of the two days to pick up food. We serve the local Bismarck School district and a 11-mile radius from the pantry. Initiating not only the Arkansas Food Bank for food, but also the gleaning program, Kroger and Harps participate in.

We are also blessed to have Ronnie Ritter with Hunters Feeding the Hungry program donate deer meat to our pantry. The clients are excited to learn we have a shipment of deer meat to give out, along with the other items we can order and pass out. We are blessed in having Marilyn Shuffield as director for many years, along with the team of workers who make this pantry operate.