BYU, St. James Church Partnership This Weekend to Help Thousands of Arkansans

Mission between Fayetteville church, Cougars' alumni association comes together in massive event Saturday that is already yielding huge results

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Sep 14, 2023 1:18 PM EDT
Original:
Sep 14, 2023

In this story:

Arkansas Razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Over at 115 S. Willow Avenue on the east side of Fayetteville, in an unassuming building where brown bricks stack on top of pink cinder blocks, miracles happen every Tuesday.

From 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., Minister Monique Jones and a group of 40-50 volunteers staff the St. James Missionary Baptist Church community outreach facility as 650-850 families in need of help file in for assistance with food, hygiene products, clothes and sometimes even housing. It's a mission that has grown exponentially under Jones' leadership as the only paid church staff working on the project.

This weekend, she will receive a large helping hand. It turns out the hospitality and willingness to serve others that Arkansas fans and the Razorback team experienced at BYU last season doesn't wall itself inside the city limits of Provo, Utah. It travels with them on the road.

Forming a Partnership

On Saturday, the BYU Alumni Association will partner with St. James to host a food drive at its tailgate festivities at Wilson Park. The Northwest Arkansas BYU chapter recommended partnering with St. James when asked about a service idea in the region. The two sides agreed to co-host a food drive aimed at filling specific needs St. James has in serving two cultures for which donations don't always align – the Hispanic and Marshallese communities that populate the neighborhood surrounding the outreach facility.

A list was provided to the alumni chapter of culturally appropriate items that the chapter was more than happy to encourage BYU and Razorback fans who might want to enjoy the hospitality to bring. That list has been shared at the bottom of this story for those interested in helping.

"It fits well within our university's mission, which is to enter to learn, which is the learning process here on campus," BYU Alumni Association executive director Michael Johanson said. "The second part is go forth to serve, so what better way to do that than to create an opportunity to serve in a meaningful way in a local community hosting our team from Provo that has been host to our alumni for much longer in a much more permanent way."

Jones will be there alongside her BYU partners. As part of the discussion she pitched the idea of filling a bus the church will bring to the tailgate. Not an organization to shy away from a challenge, the Alumni Association agreed to do everything in its power to get a tailgate group that can range anywhere from 600 to 6,000 fans, former students and their families to pack it tight.

Beyond the Four Walls

It turns out the partnership was already a natural fit. Jones had fostered a relationship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints three years prior. It just so happened that, according to BYU officials, 24 pallets carrying 40,000 pounds of food was already expected to be delivered this Friday. Adding a tailgate with a food drive attached only made sense.

St. James wasn't able to handle such a donation when she first came on staff. However, she convinced the church to allow her to expand into its previous home, a site where St. James put down roots back in 1865. As her faith generated blessing after blessing, the space had to be reshaped to include a walk-in cooler in the basement and room to accommodate the pallets upon pallets required to fulfill their mission. Each time the outreach grew along the way, needs of all kinds kept finding a way to be met.

Part of how Jones has managed to serve so many families over the years is by following an urge to break beyond the four walls of St. James. She soon found the hearts of those wanting to help people in need extended well beyond the local membership.

Volunteers from all walks of life began joining her mission and she was careful to turn no one away. Soon she found herself working alongside not only Baptists, but Episcopals, Methodists, and members of the Latter Day Saints community. Even agnostics and aethists found a calling and joined by her side under the umbrella of helping locals who struggle with acquiring enough food and basic needs. Together they help the local community, plus the 40% of University of Arkansas students who struggle to have enough food while attending school.

"I don't like to be put in a box," Jones said. "My wings that God gave me don't fit in a box. I love working outside the four walls of the church.
"The benefit also of working outside the four walls is I have the opportunity to love and nurture relationships with neighbors I wouldn't have met under any other circumstance. But it's all around the common goal of food insecurity. Working with our neighbors is usually what makes us successful in serving well and meeting people where they are."

In addition to her traditional volunteers, Jones partners with the Fayetteville Police Department and the sheriff's department to help deliver boxes to families in need. She also works with Sam's Club, Wal-Mart and Harp's in an effort to keep the pantry full.

So who are the Marshallese?

While the people of Arkansas are highly familiar with a Hispanic community that has worked hard alongside the state's other cultures to create the blue collar identity of hard work that highlights the state's overall image, few know the story of the Marshallese.

It's understandable considering it's a story that doesn't have the hundreds of years of history the Hispanic culture has in Arkansas. Their story begins in the 1980s with a single man, John Moody.

Following the defeat of Japan in World War II, the United States chose to maintain control of the Marshall Islands. Nuclear bomb testing conducted by the U.S. military in the area created terrible problems for the Marshallese. The radiation from the bombs rendered the atolls around the islands off limits for humans and had dire consequences for the environment and local biology in and around the Marshall Islands.

As a result, many of the area's inhabitants had to flee their homeland, relocating to Hawaii and the West Coast. The Marshallese fell under the rules of the Trust Territory of the Pacific, a United Nations territory government run by the United States that dictated the lives of those not only in the Marshall Islands, but the Caroline, Palau and northern Marianas Islands, plus anything that fell under Micronesia outside of Guam.

The Marshallese people weren't allowed to move about as they pleased, so it wasn't until around the 1980s, near the end of the trust, that their people found their way to the Midwest where lower costs made life more manageable. For Moody, special permission was given to study on scholarship in Oklahoma. He then moved to Springdale, finding work with Tyson Foods.

Shortly after, in 1986, the Compact of Free Association was signed between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands. This cleared the way for people to go back and forth between the two lands. Since then, thousands have reportedly fled, many of which settled in Northwest Arkansas.

So what can you bring that will help most?

LATIN AMERICAN CULTURAL FOOD PREFERENCE GUIDE
• Bagged refried beans (Isadora, La Sierra)
• Bouillon cubes (chicken, beef, or pork)
• Canned tomatoes
• Cereal (for children)
• Cooking oil • Corn or flour tortillas (Guerrero, La Banderita, El Milagro)
• Dried beans (pinto, black, navy)
• Jasmine or white rice (Goya, Mahatma)
• Lentils
• Masa
• Oats (oatmeal)
• Salt
• Sugar

MARSHALLESE CULTURAL FOOD PREFERENCE GUIDE
• Ajinomoto (Japanese spice)
• Baking powder
• Chicken broth or stock
• Coconut oil
• Cooking oil (vegetable)
• Crisco (shortening)
• Flour
• Kid-friendly microwaveable foods (corn dogs, hog dogs, etc.)
• Oats
• Noodles (Cup Noodle, Ramen, Knorr)
• Jasmine or white rice
• Soy sauce
• Sugar
• Tapioca
• Canned meats (corned beef, Spam, Vienna sausages)
• Canned fish (mackerel, sardines, tuna)

Arkansas fans can watch more on this partnership Saturday as part of Pig Trail Nation's pregame coverage at KNWA in Northwest Arkansas, KARK-TV in Central Arkansas and NWAHomePage.com from 10-11 a.m..