When the Clarksdale Care Station was in need, the community came through.
The Care Station, located on Yazoo Avenue, usually holds a catfish supper fundraiser in October. However, following the closing of the local Kroger in early 2018, the Care Station had fewer food supply resources. Kroger had donated to the Care Station for several years.
“We’re starting to run out of meat that we had left over in the freezer since Kroger shut down,” Care Station board president Charlie Estes said. “We’re going to actually have to get out and start trying to buy some meat that we’ve been needing.”
As a result, the Care Station moved this year’s catfish supper fundraiser to last Friday and raised $14,500, according to Estes.
More than 1,000 plates were sold prior to the fish fry.
“It’s been very good,” Estes said. “We sold about 1,100 tickets before the fish fry. We were going to plan for 1,200 to 1,300 plates. At 6 o’clock, we had already fed 700 people.”
Things will not go back to the way they were, but the Care Station will continue to feed those in need.
“With Kroger gone, I don’t know that we’re ever going to be back to what we call normal,” Estes said.
“We’ve gotten used to having so much food in the mill, but we’ve kind of gotten into a new reality of what our new real is. We’ve been able to manage. We haven’t had to cut anybody off. We’re still feeding the same number of people.”
Much of the food supply will come from the Memphis Food Bank. The handling fee costs 12 cents per pound, which means the cost is around $20 for 1,000 pounds.
Thanks to the money raised at the catfish supper fundraiser, Estes said the Care Station will have an easier time going to the Memphis Food Bank.
“The new normal, we’re having to go to Memphis every single week,” Estes said. “Before, we were going maybe twice a month. We’re going to Memphis twice as much as we used to.
“Without the Memphis Food Bank, it would be impossible, but the biggest problem with the food bank is we can’t always get everything we want.”
Estes also said a new organization, Extra Table, based out of Hattiesburg, delivers $800 to $900 worth of food once a month to the Care Station, but it has not provided any meat.
Looking back, Estes said the biggest difference between last Friday’s catfish supper fundraiser and previous ones was tickets sold quicker than ever this year thanks to businesses in downtown Clarksdale.
If necessary, he said another catfish supper fundraiser may be held in October.
Estes expressed gratitude toward the community for stepping up during the Care Station’s time of need.
“We can’t express how much we appreciate the generosity of the people in Clarksdale,” he said. “They just always step up. God has provided. Every time we thought we might be running out of money or whatever, God has been able to touch peoples’ hearts. Clarksdale is a very generous community. That’s the reason the Care Station has survived all these years, the generosity of the community.
“To give you an example, we started running out of bread. A message got sent out to several churches. We started getting anything from 300 to 400 loaves of bread a week. We’ve been doing that a couple weeks now just from church members bringing bread to the Care Station.
“The community is engaged with the Care Station and it’s turned into a whole community project. That’s one reason we’ve had this kind of turnout.”
