Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

And welcome to Arkansas Week.

I'm Don Scott.

Thank you for being here with us.

And we hope you're staying warm and safe over this holiday weekend.

Arkansas will be participating in a federal program this summer intended to keep kids from going hungry at a time they're not receiving school provided meals.

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced this month that we are joining the U.S. Department of Agriculture's new summer Electronic benefit transfer program.

And among those she thanked for helping make this happen was the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance.

So joining me are two members of the alliance, the CEO, Kathy Webb, along with Patty Barker, who is the director of the alliance's No Kid Hungry Campaign.

And we thank you so much for being here with us, both of you.

But first, Kathy, you were also the vice mayor of Little Rock.

And we want to talk just about the weather, first of all, this weekend.

The state bracing for extremely cold temperatures and a winter storm, the potential for snow.

What are we doing to prepare?

To prepare, I should say?

And what advice do you have for people here in central Arkansas.

The city sent out a press release this afternoon that announced that the shelter would be open tomorrow at 6:00 at the East Little Rock Community Center.

And there are a lot of places that one can get that information.

If you are an unhoused person and the public works, road crews are standing by.

They're watching the weather very carefully and they will be prepared to go out and do the best we can with salting the streets and then clearing the streets if it snows.

So we encourage people to stay in if if the roads get slick, if the weather gets bad, CIW will probably encourage people to leave faucets dripping just a little bit.

But stay tuned to the Little Rock Facebook page and the website for additional updates as we see changes in the weather.

And so that one shelter is open.

Yes, we worked with the van on that shelter.

So starting 6:00 Saturday is when it will be open and there will be over it'll be open overnight with food and beds and we believe that that will accommodate our residents who need extra assistance this weekend.

All right, Kathy, thank you so much.

And onto the new program.

You know, it's not something that we're proud of, but we have the highest percentage of food insecure households, according to the USDA.

Will this summer feeding program make a difference?

We'll start with you, Patty.

It'll make a huge difference.

It's expected to reach over 300,000 Arkansas students, school age kids, and often summer is called the hungriest time of year, especially for those students who rely on those school meals during the school year.

And this will be another piece of the USDA response for child nutrition.

It'll it'll be in addition to the summer non congregate meals that were added last summer.

And it will be in addition to the on going and regular group meals or congregate meals that are offered at schools or churches some or other summer sponsor, summer meal sponsors.

Will tell me the program provides $120 in benefits to each child who qualifies, and it's for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP.

Yeah, explain how that works.

A lot of people do understand how it works, but there are still so many that just don't.

So it'll be like those families who participate in SNAP now and their benefits are loaded on to like a credit card this summer ID card.

And this will be the same.

Families will be provided a summer card and those benefits will be loaded.

The plan is to put all three months worth of benefits onto the card at one time, so they will get those benefits early on in the summer and be able to add it to the.

In addition to the other summer meal programs that the children might be able to take advantage of.

And a simple for them is having a small credit card.

They go buy food and use the credit card to.

Yes it'll just be a grocery benefit and they can buy the additional fruits and vegetables and whole grain foods and others that can benefit those kids.

Well, the State Department of Human Services, of course, along with the Department of Education, are collaborating on a plan to implement this.

So what does that entail, Kathy?

Well, it's complicated because it's a new plan.

I want to step back for just a second and give credit to Senator Bozeman, because a lot of things were done during the pandemic that saw ways that we could see children when school was out.

That made a big difference to the children and their families.

And so Senator Bozeman was is largely responsible for the summary program, as well as the non congregate meal program that Patty mentioned that we had last summer.

And then Governor Sanders opted in for the summer rebate program.

So we have to give credit where credit's due to those two leaders in our state for doing this.

So it's complicated when you roll out a new program.

We've had conversations with folks at ABC and DHS.

You get federal rules that come down and to avoid going into the weeds.

They have to submit plans to USDA by February, and they're working very hard to collaboratively to get those plans made.

I think one thing that's important to note for families is that you will get your benefits loaded at one time.

You'll get the $120 at one time so you won't have to come back and get another $40 or another $40 or wait for that.

So this can be very helpful to families and DHS and ADT will both do TSA press releases a lot of outreach through the schools to make sure people understand the program.

Sure.

I do want to address and this is a topic that we have discussed here on Arkansas Week, and it's the it's the the idea of a food desert that faces so many communities here in Arkansas.

And I want to hear from both of you on this.

These are areas where grocery stores have closed.

So it leaves children and families with no grocery store.

They look to fast food or even convenience stores to find their nutrition.

This is a huge problem.

How do we you know, how do we go about addressing this?

It's wonderful that we're getting this money, that we're giving benefits to these children.

But what do we do about our food deserts in the state?

This is a big problem and it's kind of passion.

Working on this has been a passion of mine.

And also the Hunger Relief Alliance of the last two years.

We were part of a statewide group that Governor Hutchinson put together to come up with solutions.

And the first thing we had to do was to kind of forget the old ideas we had.

We took field trips to other states to look at what they were doing.

And so we have to be willing to try new ideas.

And one of the things we're doing in Little Rock is we're getting ready to send out a request for proposals for a mobile grocery store within the Memphis twice to look at the mobile grocery store that they have.

It's very successful and it goes into communities where people don't have transportation and are not able to get to a store.

We've seen those mobile grocery stores operating in rural areas, so that would be appropriate for other communities in Arkansas.

Another option that we saw in Mississippi is where people can order online and then a van picks up all the food and takes it to a one spot in the community.

It could be an armory, it could be city hall, it could be anyplace.

It has freezers and shelving.

And then people go there and pick up the food.

And if they don't have transportation, they get it delivered to their home waste.

We've seen that working in two different communities in Mississippi, and we've had about four or five groups from across the state actually go to Mississippi to look at those models.

So there are models out there that are working.

It's not a one size fits all.

We had a statewide summit in September where we had people from five different states come in and share what they're doing.

The Arkansas Minority Health Commission has some grants right now to use for planning.

So for different communities are going to be able to apply for these $10,000 planning grants and actually go through the process of seeing what's best in their community.

Well, I imagine some of this is education to say.

You do have, you know, a mobile grocery store go into your community.

They're selling fruits and vegetables and meats and cheeses.

You know, it's tough to teach people also healthy habits.

I mean, would you agree, Patti, that that is part of the battle?

Like, you know, if I can see a packaged lunchable or something, I might grab that before I would.

Healthy foods.

So that's got to be a struggle.

Right.

And the key piece of our work at the Alliance in the No Kid Hungry campaign is that nutrition education piece to build confidence with families through nutrition and to make sure that they can and know they can shop for healthy foods on a budget.

And adding this, the pilots of this summer program that we've been talking about showed that if kids have access to that, those extra grocery dollars during the summer, they will be accessing more fresh fruits and vegetables and they will be accessing the types of even better choices for for themselves during the summer.

And even though calories are cheap, you can practice ways to plan a budget that and choose healthier foods on a budget.

Well, you know, I'm curious if the private sector is helping.

You mentioned thinking outside the box.

You know, we're not going to build new grocery stores.

It doesn't look like.

So we're taking it to them in a mobile form.

Are you getting good help and support from from private sectors, from business owners, or wanting to also think outside the box to do things to improve the situation in Arkansas?

Absolutely.

We had several representatives from retailers, both large and small, who were on the Governors Working Group.

We had representative on the Little Rock Task Force as well, and we have consistently been talking to them about the barriers that they face in opening grocery stores in some areas and what alternatives could we provide.

I mean, transportation is a barrier often to people.

And we saw a place in Alabama where they started using vans to pick up both workers and shoppers and bring them to the grocery store.

There are a lot of different things besides brick and mortar.

Sure.

Because it's not as easy to just people want brick and mortar, but it's not as easy to do that as maybe it was 20 years ago.

And that's when we had to kind of throw out our old thinking and start looking at these new models.

You know, when we talk about the food deserts, Patty, we mentioned, you know, around the state, but is it a statewide problem?

Are there specific areas that are more hard hit than others?

Do you think it is a statewide problem?

It can be in a municipal area where a grocery store is closed down that may not be as far away as you would in the rural area, but it's all across the state, and that's the value of utilizing and providing access to this USDA meal programs that kids, wherever they are, can access good meals.

How did we get to become the the state with the highest percentage of food insecurity?

It's obviously several factors come into play there.

But in your opinion, why are we here right now?

This is not new for Arkansas, unfortunately, and we have historically been a poor state.

And while we've got a lot of wonderful nonprofits with the food banks and the Charitable Food Network who provide access to food, there are things outside their control and are controlled that contribute to food insecurity that we can't always change.

And I think the governor's willingness to participate in a program like summary to Senator Boseman's willingness to add the non congregate meal program, those are the kinds of things, when taken with continued support for the Charitable Food Network, are going to move the needle and the bill that was passed by the legislature last year to expand school meals at no charge to kids.

Collectively, those things will move the needle on the things that we're able to help control.

Sure.

We just have a minute or two left in this segment.

Just some final thoughts from you, Patty, and then we'll move to you as well, Kathy.

Well, again, to follow up on what Kathy said, to utilize all the flexibilities that we can to offer additional nutrition to kids during the summer is important.

So USDA is offering different ways kids can access that good nutrition they need.

So our job is to make sure that families are aware that they sign up for the programs and are are ready to take advantage of that good nutrition during the summer, because we know that that's if kids that stay engaged and have good nutrition over the summer, they're ready to go to school in the fall, ready to learn.

And and that's what we want so our kids will thrive.

Patty, thank you.

Kathy, final thoughts?

I think it's something we have to approach holistically from the programs that Patty talked about, engaging our elected officials, business community and leaders.

It's not an either or choice of programs.

It's an and but it is something that if we have the political will, we can do something about.

We can thank you for bringing this to our attention and to our viewers attention.

We appreciate both of you.

Patty Barker, the director of the alliance's No Kid Hungry campaign, and the CEO, Kathy Webb.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

And we'll be back with more of Arkansas all week after this.

Welcome back to the show.

To address a critical shortage of pilots, the University of Central Arkansas is partnering with the city of Conway and others to start the UK Aviation Academy programs will begin in March offering training in private and commercial aviation with full accreditation from the Federal Aviation Administration.

And joining me to talk about the training program is the acting director of the UK Aviation Academy, Dr. Brad Teague.

If he looks familiar, he is also the UK athletic director.

How did an athletic director come to help create this aviation?

You know, Don, I have been a pilot for 20 years and so I've been fascinated, passionate about aviation for a long time.

And of course, our president, Dr. Houston Davis, knew that.

And we have been talking about aviation on this campus for quite some time.

We visited aviation degree programs throughout the Southeast, some who are in our athletic conferences that have done a great job with their aviation programs.

And we've discussed it and it just didn't really make sense on our campus the way that they had structured their aviation program.

And until Dr. Davis about a year ago, in a conversation with the airport director here in Conway, Jake Braley, and Jake told him, you don't have to have an academic degree program.

You can partner with a third party flight school and then therefore offer flight instruction on your campus without having to own the assets, without having to have employees.

And therefore, your third party would do all that for you.

And so that made sense.

And so that's when the wheels started turning.

He got me involved.

And at that time he said, Hey, can you kind of structure this for us until we find somebody for a permanent role?

And I said, Absolutely, I'd love to do it.

So who's involved?

We know you.

We know the city of Conway, and then there's a school involved.

That's right.

So we sent out a request for proposals to all of these flight schools around the Southeast and got many back and central flying service out of Little Rock one our bid and which is wonderful.

It's local.

They do a great job.

They're what's called a Part 141 program, which is with the FAA, therefore certifies as the top flight schools in America.

And they are one of those.

So we're very happy that they are our partner.

Well, there's a huge need right now for pilots.

And of course, we'll get to that in a minute.

But within days of announcing this new aviation school, you had tons of interest.

Well, so internally we were thinking, well, wouldn't it be great if we could get ten interested in the program to start?

And so the day we announced November 15th out of the airport, we had our Web site go live, and it just was receiving.

We had the opportunity to say who has an interest in this program?

And after a day, we had 400 in there, and after a week we had 1200 ended up with 1300 who said we'd like more information, basically.

And so now we have we're going to start in March.

And so we sent out requests for applications and we had 250 of those 1300 apply and we've got to whittle that now down to 30.

So instead of ten, we're going to have 30 and we have a lot of demand, a lot of interest, a lot will be on the waiting list.

So that's exciting.

So there's a lot of room to grow as well.

Obviously show the interest that's been shown.

You know, there are workforce shortages across industries.

And how did the aviation industry come to have such a critical shortage?

Yes.

So there was always, always going to be a shortage because of retirements.

Aviation requires retirement at 65 years of age.

It used to be 62.

They moved it to 65.

And now there's talk about hopefully moving it to 67 just because of the shortage.

So there were going to be retirements coming in this decade and then COVID hit and the aviation industry didn't have the demand for flights.

And so they forced retirements at that time.

So even more retirements.

And here we are back.

Folks are flying more than ever.

And there are now 17,000 jobs available for pilots in commercial aviation as we speak.

But we don't have enough trained to fill.

It, not near enough.

And 30 is not enough either.

So we've got to figure this out.

This is our small, small part to try to help the industry and others are trying to do the same.

And we hope we can definitely grow that well beyond 30 soon.

Well, tell us about the actual program.

You receive licensure, but there are courses involved.

How long does it take?

What does it look like?

Yeah, that's right.

So every pilot who wants to become a commercial aviator for the commercial airlines has to go through the same process.

And it starts with a private pilot license.

Then it moves into an instrument rating, then a commercial license, then a multi-engine rating, and then the airline transport pilot, which is the commercial aviation pilot's license.

And that takes gosh, it depends on your aptitude, you know, depends on your commitment.

But it could take anywhere from 2 to 4 years.

Okay.

We're showing our program to get us through the commercial and multi-engine ratings that it would take two years to do that.

So pretty efficient.

And to be clear, this is not an academic program per se.

It's licensure.

In flight training, people can pursue other degrees.

Your students can come and pursue this.

That's right.

And so we think that's an advantage of this program.

Most aviation programs are an academic degree program.

We are not that.

This is through our division of outreach.

It's continuing education.

So therefore, we anticipate we'll have many students who can now come to UK and get a degree.

And their choice could be business, could be education, could be physical therapy.

We have great academic programs here, but then also flight training on the side.

And so that that really gives them something to fall back on potentially if piloting in what they want to eventually do.

So we've got something else they can do.

And so I think it's the best of both worlds.

Well, how do you go from these higher numbers to 50 to 30?

And what what are the requirements to get in this for?

Obviously, it's very competitive.

It is very competitive.

So we are actively working on scholarships and grants and other funding mechanisms, but for now we don't have any of those.

So it's not inexpensive to flight train.

We are anticipating about $70,000 spread over that two year period to complete our program.

So this first private pilot license is going to take around 12 to $15000, again, depending on your aptitude, the efficiency, your commitment to that training.

And for now, it's going to have to be funded out of pocket by the individual, by the individuals.

And there's no money, no school money, no state money or federal money for that matter.

Not currently.

We anticipate by summer we will have some of those.

Well, often in an industry like piloting or flight in training and there's such a shortage, we would hope that there might be some federal government or state government help.

Do you see that coming?

We do see that coming.

The issue for us is those have always been tied to the aviation academic programs, which we are not.

So we're trying to demonstrate, since there is such the need that this new way of looking at flight training is worthy of those funding mechanisms.

So we think we will we have some some positive feedback from many of those individuals.

And so we think so.

And, you know, 20 years ago when I got my license, my instructor was leaving me to go to the commercial airlines and was going to make $19,000 per year and had to do that for two years to build his hours.

Now, the starting salary, $70,000 and the average salary is $210,000.

That's just the average.

It's incredible.

So the incentives to join aviation, even though it may be expensive to get your your license, you're the incentives, are you?

You'll do well.

So say you go through this program and you receive your certification and then you just go fly or what are the what's this?

Yeah.

So there you have to build your hours for commercial.

Airlines will hire you.

So when you finish our program, you'll be somewhere around 200 flight hours, maybe 2 to 50.

You have to have 1500 hours of experience before you can even sit for an interview with commercial airlines.

So how do you do that?

Well, most instruct in the program.

So it's a constant cycle.

Those instructors who will be instructing now will, once they get to their 1500 hours, they will move on to the commercial airlines.

And then our students who are now graduating will move in to be instructors.

So it continues that cycle.

And you can you can get those extra thousand to 1200 hours pretty quickly a year to year and a half.

So it won't take very long.

As you see the only university in the state doing this right.

Now, doing it in this way.

So Henderson State has a four year degree program and there's Ozark College in Melbourne, Arkansas, that has a two year degree program where you the only ones that are not a degree program.

So there's options out there for for everyone, really.

Yeah.

Tell us, when can one apply, When do classes start?

I know you have a website.

We can put this up on the screen.

It's a UK dot edu forward slash aviation, but to give us the details.

Absolutely.

So at that website, you can find a lot of information and certainly can apply there.

And we'd love for everyone to at least explore it, you know, get some more information, apply and have a conversation and see if it's right for that individual.

And we think we're going to have a lot of demand continuing and hopefully we can get well past 30 students really soon.

Well, we hope so.

Any final thoughts as we close out this segment?

You know, we're just excited that UK is able to provide this for our students and for our community and for our state.

And that's that's the goal is to help improve aviation in our state.

And we think we can do that.

All right.

Dr. Brad Teague, the UK athletic director, but also the UK acting director of the New Aviation Academy at the University of Central Arkansas.

We sure appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

And that's it for us here at Arkansas Week.

Be safe this weekend.

We will see you next time.

Support for Arkansas week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.