Christmas Tuesday Night Dinner

The Tuesday Night Dinners closed out the year on a very elegant note due a fine dining atmosphere enhanced by beautiful Christmas orchestra music. The fine dining was gifted to Tuesday Night Dinners by Snack Lab partners Bobby Bland and Emily Amadon. Their gracious crews provided and served Christmas appetizers, dinner and desserts. A large buffet served by the Snack Lab team included turkey, ham, sweet and mashed potatoes, dressing, vegetables, gravy, and other accompaniments like mashed cauliflower - so guests enjoyed a holiday meal that was nutritious AND delicious. In additional to many familiar TND families, others joined the meal so the evening festivities were enjoyed by a much larger than normal dining crowd. While Ms. Sara and the kids created Christmas star ornaments, the rest of the diners were treated to music by the Vanderhoff Family Orchestra. The family orchestra Is directed by the father, Hudson Vanderhoff, and the musicians include his wife, Patti and their adult children Keziah, Makeda, Meklit and their minor children Alia, Zekiel, Zephaniah, Thea and Kyria

The family orchestra played beautiful renditions of Christmas favorites as diners enjoyed a leisurely meal. The music included: O Come All Ye Faithful, Pastorale, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Christmas Suite, Holly Jolly Christmas, A Fiddlin Christmas, Jingle Rock, It's Holiday Time, Christmas Cellebration, O Come O Come Emmanuel, We Three Kings, Angels We have Heard on High, Ukranian Bell Carol and String a Song of Christmas. 

This unique family of home-schooled musicians, their adult siblings and their parents, along with Snack Lab partners Bobby Bland, Emily Amadon and their team's delicious meal, made the last Tuesday Night Dinner of 2019 a special Christmas dining experience to long remember.

Fall Bounty    November 12, 2019

Second Street Pantry is so thankful for the abundance of guest volunteer services and gifts this fall. Below is a current outline of the special guest volunteer services and gifts experienced in October and November. SSPM is blessed always by the gifts of our year around volunteers/angels!

October Harvests

  • $450 gift card from FUMC Bella Vista - Marilyn Korn
  • $2,000 grant for healthy foods from NWARFB - report by Barb Laubenstein
  • $1,500 grant from 200,000 Reasons United Methodist Church - Rev. Linda Stewart
  • Guest Tuesday Night Dinner team from FBC Amy Dyson and youth
  • Final market day fresh produce from Cobblestone and Seeds that Feed

November Thanks

  • Lincoln Junior High School Charity Food Drive foods
  • First Baptist Youth Rally served SSPM in mission centers (40+ teens) plus donated completed snack packs
  • Tyson and NWAFB Free Chicken Event-800 lbs of chicken
  • Sunday Thanksgiving sacks out to congregations and friends returned by Nov. 17
  • Beer and Hymns special thanks ...fundraising for SSPM and two other pantries
  • Security department from WalMart team guest volunteered for Monday shelving (25 people) and brought food drive goods. Contact: Amanda Wade
  • Friend of pantry ( Kara) did a food drive
  • Wee Friends food drive


A Simple Ministry

It had been a busy day at the pantry. Due to the Labor Day holiday, our normal Monday shelving and Food Bank delivery occurred Tuesday morning. We had just finished up and were setting up for normal pantry duties when Bud and Denise Abbott arrived. Bud and Denise, from San Antonio, had stopped in Bentonville to visit family on their way to Chicago. We're used to people asking for help, but Bud and Denise wanted to help us. They asked if they could pray for us. Yes, of course! As we chatted, we learned the Abbotts pray for churches in their community and when traveling they stop at churches and ask to pray for them. Their ministry is based on Luke 19:11-17, the parable of the ten minas. Their ministry is a simple one: pray for churches. It costs them nothing but their time. Along the way, individuals and church congregations receive the gift of prayer. 

How often have you told yourself "if only I had more money, I could help more?" Or, "if only I had more time, I could volunteer more." We all tend to believe our gestures must be grand to be impactful, but the Abbotts have shown sometimes the simplest acts have more impact than we realize. Smiling at a stranger. Starting a conversation with a neighbor. Praying for a church. What a simple way to make a difference. Thank you Bub and Denise!


No Summer Vacation for Snack Packs

Snack packs consist of ready to eat or easy to prepare individual size foods for children that might otherwise not have foods over the weekend.  Second Street Pantry Missions has been delivering snack packs to Washington Junior High School here in Bentonville since fall 2014. This mission was made possible through the long term collaborative efforts of a WalMart tax department team lead by Aaron Dick and SSPM.  Two years ago SSPM partnered with an advertising company lead by Scott Caldwell, to begin providing snack packs to a second school: Lincoln Junior High. In the fall of 2018, a WalMart IT department chaired by Jeff Harris, began partnering with SSPM to provide the snack packs to Lincoln JHS.


It had been a goal of ours to also deliver snack packs to children during the summer months, and this goal was realized last summer when a delivery system was introduced through the FUMC Summer Eats and Bentonville Public School lunch program.  This system of delivery was continued again this summer


The mission to provide summer snack packs involves multiple people and efforts.  Foods that make up the snack packs are purchased by Second Street Pantry Missions, delivered to the pantry on Mondays, and then inventoried by SSPM’s snack pack chairs, Ann Morrisey and Becky Koessel.  Ann and Becky then organize the foods for the Walmart teams who assemble the snack pack. Last, but not least, the snack packs are picked up by Friday SSPM volunteers and delivered to the Delmar Apartments, Helping Hands and the Bentonville Public Library where children gather for lunches which are provided by Bentonville Public Schools.


This summer 1,160 snack packs were delivered to children from June 6 to August 9! These snack packs cost approximately $2.50 per pack. We are especially thankful to those who provided specific funds for this summer snack packs, and we welcome additional help as children begin the 2019-2020 school year.

As mentioned in the title, there is no summer vacation for the snack pack program.  With school about to begin again, our junior high school counselors at Washington and Lincoln Jr. High will soon be letting us know how many children will be in need of snack packs during the 2019-2020 school year.  So we are gearing up already by stockpiling snack pack appropriate foods to fill that need.

Want to help? Please visit our website http://2ndstpantry.org/ and click on the donate button. It is secure. Thanks for your consideration!


Illuminating SSPM Diaper Mission

It’s not just their bright smiles and their effervescent enthusiasm.  It’s the fact that they radiate goodwill. This summer special groups of donors and volunteers have made SSPM’s diaper distribution possible. July’s edition of “Inside the Pantry” focuses on diapers.  Yes, diapers!


In January of 2019, SSPM began a partnership with the Diaper Bank of the Ozarks. This partnership allotted 5000 diapers for SSPM’s distribution. SSPM’s plan to make the first Tuesday of each month “diaper day” was a huge success.  So successful, that it was evident that our supply would be depleted quickly. So Ashley Rogers, our Diaper chairperson, proactively worked with Aaron Dick, a SSPM board member, to seek a diaper source. This resulted in a gift of two pallets of diapers and one of wipes from First Quality Consumer Products. 


So how do you handle the gift of three full pallets delivered unannounced to the inside entrance area of Christ the King? First, and repeatedly, you tell Christ the King secretary, Vicky, how much you appreciate her accepting the delivery! Then you look for help to move the three pallet gift.  Answering that HELP call was a group of four consisting of two moms and their two strong teens who are members of the Young Men's Service League. They enthusiastically took on the huge task of unloading and hauling all the cases of diapers and wipes up two flights of stairs to SSPM’s storage room at Christ the King.


The next step was to prepare the diapers for distribution. Under the leadership of Ashley, a few JustServe moms and kids repackaged, bundled, and labeled the diapers into bundles of fifty.  Then on July 2, parents in need came to Second Street Pantry to pick up diapers for their infants and toddlers.

So that’s the behind the scenes account of July’s diaper distribution. Illuminating, right?!




Sweet, Sweet Spirits

There's no better way to describe the multi-generational dessert bakers than "sweet, sweet spirits". One grandmother, one mom, and two eleven year old friends have made a covenant to provide home made Tuesday Night Dinner desserts once a month throughout the summer. They actually got an earlier start by baking brownies in April.
In May, this sweet team prepared shortcake and served it with fresh strawberries. Yummy!  
This picture features their dessert as well as the two eleven year old friends, Lily and Cambri, Lily’s mom Kristen, and her grandmother Gloria. Not baking in May but joining the multi-generational team is Cambri’s grandmother, Carol, who manned the ticket box that Tuesday Night.  Word is that this multi-generational team is planning a blueberry sweet for June. 
Inspired?  Summer’s a great time to volunteer with your kids and grandkids!  Get involved on Monday mornings when groceries are unloaded, Tuesday Pantry, or Tuesday Night Dinner (that’s what the Young Men's Service League and their moms are doing). It’s also what older students, who sign up through JustServe, have done. Thank you "sweet, sweet spirits" for  volunteering your time and talents through Second Street Pantry Missions.


May flowers can be likened to whispers of Christ. They are abundant; all you have to do is look for them.



Inside the pantry, one can feel and witness the whispers of Christ. Examples are abundant...if you look for them.  Whispers are exemplified in smiles, words of greeting, and conversations between and among guests and volunteers. Beginning with early morning greeters and throughout the day, volunteers welcome pantry guests and also gift them with sacks of groceries provided by all who support the pantry.  Whispers of Christ flower throughout the mission of Second Street Pantry. 



Today’s insider story focuses on a special teenage volunteer who regularly volunteers in the pantry by helping to hand out sacks of groceries.  Jayci is a special whisperer of Christ to pantry guests who are without homes.  She ministers to our homeless guests in a very special way. She makes each one a personalized sack containing foods and care goods that she’s aware they need or would like to have. Jayci, by her actions, is whispering Christ to our homeless guests.  Whispering that they are loved...Whispering that they are special.


Easter April 2019. What better time would there be to inform you of SSPM food re-purposing endeavors?

As you may know, Tuesday Night Dinners are provided free of charge to our pantry clients, and the meals are planned by our kitchen guru, Lisa Stell, and her team of kitchen wizards.  To offer a wholesome dining experience, Lisa procurers the majority of the food from the Northwest Arkansas Regional Food Bank (NWARFB), Seeds that Feed, and Cobblestone Foods. In the warm months, the fresh produce makes a huge, healthy impact on meal planning and outcome. This winter, re-purposing became even broader as Seeds that Feed picked up rescued restaurant foods and delivered them to SSPM where they became a tasty enhancement to meals (think soups, soup bases and vegetable bases).

Taking the re-purposing one step further, Lisa, working with SSPM volunteer Amber Harris, is now using a tote instead of a garbage bag to dispose of the Tuesday Night Dinner wastes. Vegetable, fruit and other food wastes are now "toted away" by Amber for her chickens. Those specially bred chickens produce large, beautifully colored eggs. Please see the photo of the kinds of eggs Amber’s chickens produce. In exchange for what Lisa would otherwise throw away, she now receives a couple of dozen eggs each week from those special fed chickens!

Re-purposing foods...NWARFB...Seeds that Feed... chicken and eggs...creative people....resurrecting foods!