FERRIDAY, La. — Next Friday, representatives of Oklahoma City-based Feed the Children will arrive in Ferriday to distribute hundreds of boxes of food to those in need.

Distribution will start at 10 a.m. at the former farmer’s market building on First Street. Until then, Ferriday citizens volunteering with the program will hand out 880 tickets for the boxes to local churches, food pantries and individuals. And they probably will not have trouble finding such people. According to 1990 Census figures, almost 31 percent of Concordia Parish’s 20,504 residents live below the poverty level. That includes 2,503 children under 18, or almost 40 percent of the parish’s children.

&uot;There’s a vital need for this,&uot; volunteer Andrew Howard said at a Friday meeting at Town Hall with town officials, volunteers and Don Richardson, a vice president with Feed the Children.

&uot;If a child doesn’t have the proper food, he won’t grow or function right,&uot; Howard said. &uot;He won’t perform well in school. And he may grow up with a ‘dog eat dog’ mentality … unless someone shows him that they care.&uot;

&uot;This is going to be great for Ferriday,&uot; said volunteer James Skipper, adding that he commends Mayor Glen McGlothin and town Administrative Assistant Alex Promise for helping organize the food program. &uot;This is something we’ve needed for the longest.&uot;

Richardson said he first heard of Ferriday’s needs several years ago when a Feed the Children volunteer in Dumas, Ark., introduced him to Promise, a Ferriday native who has volunteered with Feed the Children for several years.

The nonprofit organization responded to that need three years ago, bringing seven trucks full of food to the town to distribute.

&uot;We’ve been watching the (poverty) statistics since then and decided that since there was still a need we would come back,&uot; Richardson said.

In fact, he added that he hopes the group’s trucks can return to Ferriday twice a year for the foreseeable future to deliver boxes of food and perhaps, around Christmas, gifts for children.

But Richardson said he hopes such efforts will not only work to feed the hungry in the short term, but inspire local people to start more long-term feeding programs.

That is a hope shared by McGlothin, who said he also sees a need for such a program. &uot;This might not solve the problem, but it will go a long way toward helping,&uot; he said.

Current programs for feeding the hungry will not do it all, McGlothin added.

&uot;There’s a misconception that food stamps, for example, are the end-all solution,&uot; he said. &uot;But they don’t increase with the increase of the cost of food. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.&uot;