Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield exceeds food goal

Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield exceeds food goal

Initiative packs 1.1 million meals for shelters across Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK — Tonight, there are families in Arkansas who will sleep a little better. Tomorrow, their kids will think a little better in school, fueled by a healthy meal that was packed and provided to them through the efforts of neighbors – employees of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and approximately 4,000 other volunteers statewide – who care about these Arkansans’ health and wellbeing.

In celebration of its 70th anniversary, Arkansas Blue Cross kicked off its “Fearless Food Fight” in March pledging to pack 700,000 meals in 2018 to address food insecurity in Arkansas. When the final gong was sounded at the end of November, the initiative far exceeded that goal; providing more than 1.1 million meals to food pantries throughout the state — enough to feed one-third of Arkansas’ almost 3 million residents.

“Investing in the communities we serve — particularly in ways that directly support improving health — is part of our organization’s foundation and is woven into the very fabric of our company’s culture,” said Curtis Barnett, president and CEO of Arkansas Blue Cross. “So, it was especially appropriate for us to make community service an integral part of our 70th anniversary celebration.

What a privilege it has been to be in the communities of our members, our friends and neighbors, working elbow to elbow to fight food insecurity in our state.”

Getting great healthcare is important to overall health – but many factors contribute to overall wellness, including where a person lives, the amount of education they have, social circles and economic stability (all social determinants).

Safety, activity, food and many other social determinants affect health, too. Access to nutritious food is fundamental to good health. And it’s a serious issue in our state: § 1 in 5 Arkansans struggle with hunger. Children, senior adults and rural residents struggle the most.

§Arkansas ranks first nationally in the category “very low food security,” at 8.1 percent. Households that fall into this United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) category have more severe problems, experiencing deeper hunger and cutting back or skipping meals on a more frequent basis.

§Arkansas ranks second nationally in the number of people facing food insecurity. According to a recent report, 19.7 percent of Arkansans do not know where their next meal is coming from.

§Arkansas is ranked sixth nationally in senior hunger.

An estimated 240,000 Arkansans age 60 and older are food insecure.

“Not knowing where their next meal is coming from is too often the reality for hundreds of thousands of Arkansans,” said Kathy Webb, executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. “Providing nutritious meals is fundamental to keeping Arkansans healthy. Efforts such as the Arkansas Blue Cross Fearless Food Fight show how working together can make a difference in the lives of people in need.”

Fearless Food Fight 2018 at a glance: § 29 Fearless Food Fight events hosted statewide § 34 counties served §115 local food banks, pantries and shelters supported § 4,000+ employees and community volunteers participating § 1,091,472 total meals packed § Meals contained approximately 65,875 pounds of rice; 12,135 pounds of dehydrated cheese; 32,937 pounds of soy; 8,668 pounds of protein and 3,467 pounds of vegetables.

Fearless Food Fight events were hosted by: USTA Arkansas, Camp Couchdale/ FFAArkansas, 4-H Arkansas, Simmons Bank, Mercy Health Systems/Fort Smith and City of Waldron, Hooten’s Arkansas Football – Conway Christian High School, Southside Batesville High School, Foreman High School, Parkers Chapel High School, Warren High School, Fouke High School, Smackover High School, Bauxite High School – Ouachita County/ Haymond Insurance, Oaklawn Jockey Club, Mena School District, United Way/Pine Bluff, First Christian Church of Harrison, Harding University, University of Arkansas Razorback Athletic Department/ Student Athletes, Mountain Home FFA, World Class All-stars Cheery Gym, Mississippi County Health Systems and Agent Berry Live United Bowl/Texarkana.

Arkansas Blue Cross worked closely with The Pack Shack of Rogers, Ark., to help facilitate the food fight events. The nonprofit organization was established “Aquaman” Arthur “Aquaman” Curry (Jason Momoa) is one of the few superheroes who is seemingly more formidable as his alter ego than in his superhero form. Everything about the guy screams “tough,” from his muscular physique to his tapestry of tattoos to his battle-scarred face. His Justice League colleagues Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince are nowhere near as intimidating. An early scene in “Aquaman” sees a gang of biker types approach Arthur, apparently looking for a fight. In a normal superhero movie, this would be the scene where the mild-mannered hero demonstrates that their appearance is deceiving as they dispatch their underestimating adversaries with an early glimpse of their powers. But these goons can tell just by looking at Arthur that they’re outmatched,

and the scene proceeds

peacefully.

I bring up Arthur’s appearance because it’s the one interesting thing about him. Everything else is completely by-the-numbers. His origin is that he’s the son of underwater queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) and surface- based lighthouse keeper Tom (Temuera Morrison). Atlanna was allegedly executed by her people for having Arthur, and now as an adult he’s wracked with guilt, which he tempers with superhero work. As a half-Atlantean, he has water-based powers like the ability to breathe underwater and communicate with sea life. He already put these powers to use in “Justice League,” and early scenes of him as an adult in this movie see him take his anger out on a fleet of pirates led by Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). He uses his powers to get onto a submarine that’s being hijacked. But once he’s onboard, he mostly just relies on regular fighting. He causes Manta to suffer a personal loss, and a lifetime grudge is born.

But Arthur has bigger Atlanteans to fry. He’s informed by his princess love interest Mera (Amber Heard) that his power-hungry half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) is about to launch an attack on the surface world in his quest to rid the planet of the people who have poisoned its oceans (even the good guys can’t deny that he has a point). To defeat Orm, Arthur will have to either gain control of the Trident of Atlan and defeat his brother’s army in battle, or challenge and defeat his in 2013 to increase awareness about hunger, provide food, and encourage people to get involved with the local nonprofits

serving their

community.

“It has been a great year working with Arkansas Blue Cross through the Fearless Food Fight,” said Bret Raymond, co-founder and chief executive officer of The Pack Shack. “With their vision and commitment to the citizens of Arkansas, more than 1 million meals will go a long way in helping people eat…and eat healthier…thanks to efforts of neighbors who care about each other and invested brother in one-on-one combat. The one-on-one combat sounds easier, but the problem is that Arthur doesn’t know how to fight underwater, no matter how much help he’s secretly received from his brother’s vizier Vulko (Willem Dafoe). So it looks like it’s going to be a quest to retrieve the trident and then lead an army of sea creatures in an epic battle. I must stress that putting Arthur underwater is the only conceivable way this movie can convincingly have Jason Momoa at a disadvantage against Patrick Wilson. Even when Wilson was a Watchman, he was the wimpy one.

In a movie landscape highly populated (some would say overpopulated) by superhero movies, “Aquaman” is definitely… one of them. Momoa makes for a unique presence, but all the other actors are just playing archetypes. Atlantis and the undersea world are nice enough to look at, but the action scenes are weak and forgettable. The film is part of the DC Cinematic Universe, and that needs to be taken into consideration. If this were an MCU movie, its blandness would make it notably disappointing, but relative to other DCU entries, it actually comes off okay. It’s not as good as the groundbreaking “Wonder Woman,” but it’s not as irritating as all those dark-but-not-edgy critical flops that we’re used to getting from this franchise.

There’s a much better superhero movie out right now with “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse,” but if you’ve seen that and you still need a superhero fix, I suppose this one couldn’t hurt.

the time to express it

in a wonderful way.”

Arkansas Blue Cross turned 70 on December 3, 2018. Since its inception in 1948, seven decades ago, the company has offered reliable, affordable health insurance coverage to Arkansans and providing the peace of mind that comes with knowing members have access to healthcare when they need it most. Through the years Arkansas Blue Cross also has been a good corporate citizen, investing in the communities it serves statewide.

“Arkansas Blue Cross already supports programs that address many of the Grade: C (“Aquaman” is rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and for language. Its running time is 143 minutes) *** “Mary Poppins Returns” It has been 54 years since Julie Andrews first graced movie screens as nanny extraordinaire

Mary Poppins.

The stern-but-kind governess used a combination of magic and mental trickery to help the Banks family restore order to their chaotic lives. Now children Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane (Emily Mortimer) have grown up, and Michael has children of his own: Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson). The family has once again hit a rough patch, with Michael’s wife having passed, his house in danger of foreclosure, and his well-intentioned children always getting into trouble. From out of the sky comes Mary Poppins (now played by Emily Blunt) to save the day again.

Poppins sees the family through a series of adventures, mostly involving them trying to save their home. Michael took out a predatory loan from his own employer Mr. Wilkins (Colin Firth), who would rather take the house than get his money back. The adults want to pay back the loan with some long-lost stock shares, but the children want to raise money by selling a “priceless” bowl of their late mother’s.

Some in-fighting leads to the bowl getting broken, which leads to both the best and worst sequences of the film, the former when the characters enter the cartoon world depicted on their social determinants of health,” said Barnett. “We will continue that support, but for the next five years, we will be working particularly closely with organizations in the state that are already doing great work focused on helping people have access to nutritious food. And we want to thank all of our fellow Arkansans who worked alongside us this year to make this goal a reality to ensure our most vulnerable citizens have access to healthy food.

“Making sure food is available is the first step.

Finding long-term solutions will define our next step.”

Learn more about the Fearless Food Fight at: bowl, and the latter when they seek repairs from Poppins’ confused cousin (Meryl Streep), a stereotype of an unspecified ethnicity.

The family is accompanied on most of their adventures by Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), a lamplighter with eyes for Jane who essentially fills the role of Dick Van Dyke’s Bert from the first movie. It’s mentioned that Bert is still alive, but surprisingly Van Dyke pops up for a cameo elsewhere. I was thrilled to hear that “Hamilton” mastermind Miranda was jumping to the big screen for this movie, but his contribution is a bit of a let-down. He’s often either struggling with his cockney accent (not that Van Dyke exactly nailed it in the original either) or getting swallowed alive by the overproduction of his center-stage number “Trip a Little Light Fantastic.”

Only momentarily, as he tells a convoluted story during a portion of the Blunt duet “A Cover is Not the Book,” is he the Lin-Manuel Miranda we know and love.

The movie comes in just under the mark on a number of occasions. Maybe it’s the direction of Rob Marshall, whose stagey musicals I’ve never much cared for, including the Oscar-winning “Chicago” http://www.arkansasbluecross. com/ FearlessFood-Fight/default.asp Founded in 1948, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, is the largest health insurer in Arkansas. Arkansas Blue Cross and its affiliates have more than 2,900 employees.

(I’m only referring to liveaction sequences here, not the superior animated ones, even one that does in fact involve a stage) Maybe it’s the weird inconsistency of the “saving the house” plot, with Firth’s villain giving the family every opportunity to best him despite it going against his better interests. But I think the film is mostly mediocre because of the inevitable comparisons to the original. When you’re going up against an The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is comprised of 36 independent, community- based and locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans that collectively provide healthcare coverage for nearly 106 million members – one

in three Americans.

all-time classic, flawed-yetagreeable just doesn’t cut it.

Still, I recommend seeing this film. What, you think I’m going to tell you to stay away from something as sweet as a “Mary Poppins” movie? The cast and crew are clearly putting their best foot forward, sensitive song “The Place Where Lost Things Go” is likely to get an Oscar nomination, and characters float under the sea in bubbles and up in the sky in balloons. Take the family to see “Mary Poppins Returns” and you’ll have a perfectly fine time. You won’t be getting a Disney classic, but you’ll get a movie that everybody can at least enjoy.

Grade: B- (“Mary Poppins Returns” is rated PG for some mild thematic elements and brief action. Its running time is 130 minutes) Contact Robert R. Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.

From Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield