AR02 Stories and Data

For 43 years, Dr. Mona McBride’s mother, Mary Arnold, was a pastor in the small city of Hamburg, Arkansas, and a pillar of hope to the community. Today, Dr. McBride views the new CAREFirst pharmacy and wellness center that she opened in 2023 as a continuation of her mother’s legacy, providing holistic and personal care and resources to a medically underserved community.

On Halloween 2022, Magan Hubbard and her daughter Mackenzie, 16, received the biggest treat of all when they moved into their new home in Little Rock, AR. Hubbard’s monthly payments for the brand new house were about the same amount she had been paying to rent an apartment.

Dustin Gunn, a first-year college student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, realized he needed his own vehicle to maintain a busy schedule with school and work. Working as a lifeguard at the Jess Odom Community Center in a neighboring suburb, he spent his first year “hitching rides from friends and family and getting Ubers.” He came to HOPE in search of a solution. HOPE’s associates welcomed Gunn and provided financial advice tailored to meet his personal needs by helping him navigate the auto loan application. “[HOPE] really made sure that the process went smoothly my first time purchasing a car,” said Gunn. Gunn’s loan application was quickly approved and he purchased a formerly owned Toyota 4 Runner. Now with the freedom to travel on his time table, Gunn remarked, “HOPE has opened doors for me and gave the proper guidance for a young kid like myself.”

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, a place for creativity is rising, casting its light on an entire community. The Community School for the Arts, nestled by the riverfront, looks forward to transformative changes thanks to $5 million in funding through the federal New Markets Tax Credit program. The NMTC program is designed to attract private-sector capital investments into the nation’s urban and rural low-income areas in an effort to help expand access to quality jobs, healthcare, education, and other critical services in those communities.