31 Dec 2024 Five-Oh-Ones to Watch 2025: Ciara Callicott
By Judy Riley
For an inspiring life, look no further than 23-year-old Ciara Callicott. She is the founder and CEO of Unite to Fight Poverty, an international nonprofit. While a full-time student working on her master’s degree in business from Arkansas State University (ASU), she volunteers for the nonprofit. And then, there are the interviews and personal appearances she does to prepare for the Miss Arkansas pageant as Miss Saline County.
What drives this ambitious young woman with a big heart to attack something as daunting as poverty? “I grew up in a family of public educators,” she said. “My grandfather, Glen Eskola, coached football at Robinson and J.A. Fair. My parents are both teachers: my father at Pulaski Technical College and my mother at Parkview High School. They never excluded me from adult conversations about students and how best they might help them. They embodied a life of service”
Callicott grew up in Bryant, then the family moved to Little Rock when she was 14 so she could attend Parkview, an arts and sciences magnet school. She began dance lessons, primarily ballet, with the Michael Tidwell School. She now focuses on jazz but continues to help with the Tidwell Project, providing dance lessons to those who cannot afford to pay.
College followed at the University of Alabama, where she saw centralized wealth and much poverty, a system that had failed its children. C0VID-19 spread during her freshman year, and she began working to help provide vaccinations. Her major was political science and international studies with a minor in Russian. Her studies gave her practical experience in how and when to make contacts to influence policy and laws. She learned that, at one time in some schools, those who could not pay for their lunch or had an outstanding balance had an “X” marked on their hands. Fortunately, that is now illegal.
Returning to Arkansas for graduate work at ASU brought her back to the family legacy of helping kids. A visit to her high school and a conversation with her former middle school principal, Todd Sellers, had a great impact. Learning the percentage of students who cannot afford to pay for school lunches became a battle cry for her nonprofit. Already financially strapped public schools ultimately pay off student lunch debt at an alarming yearly amount.
Any given day might find Callicott preparing a social media campaign to secure donations to purchase lunches for students in the Little Rock School District. Her recent effort on Giving Tuesday resulted in $1,000 in donations. Every little bit helps as individuals voluntarily assume the cost of a $3.50 lunch. Her work can be viewed at unite2fightpoverty.com.
Meanwhile, she entered the Miss Arkansas contest as Miss Saline County. Each contestant must have a philanthropy project, called their platform. For Callicott, it was easy. Her platform has two priorities: First to advocate for free school breakfast and lunches, and second, she wants to garner donations from the private sector to supplement the effort.
This brave young woman is working to provide free school meals for students in need. Callicott hopes to become the next Miss Arkansas, sharing her voice on a national stage and making Arkansas proud! Residents of 501, just watch her!
