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Here’s how we know the power of partnership with our network of 270 faith-based and community charities: We’re better together. Partner pantries like the Mountain Grove Love Center have worked with Ozarks Food Harvest for decades through the highs and lows of the fight the end hunger. Through this partnership, the Love Center has grown to provide food assistance to more than 500 people monthly. But like The Food Bank, the Mountain Grove Love Center didn’t start out where they are now.

The Love Center pantry first began in a church basement serving a few people each month, but the need for food assistance in Wright County was greater than one church basement could handle. As time went on, the Love Center moved into a 30-by-30-foot building, and then into their current 15,000-square-foot facility equipped with a walk-in cooler and freezer in 2017. Little did the Love Center know how critical their new location would be when the COVID-19 crisis happened just a few years later.

Like much of the hunger-relief network, the Mountain Grove Love Center has seen an increased demand in the years following the pandemic, and the need doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Rising costs of food, housing and childcare are resulting in record numbers of our neighbors seeking food assistance.

Kevin Jenkins, executive director of the Love Center, said, “We’re seeing more and more people come in. We have people coming in telling us that they’re just barely making it because of the high prices of everything. We help by giving them food that can last them a week.”

On top of rising prices, the Love Center is located in a rural area, making the risk of hunger more likely for the people that live there. Kevin shared that in Mountain Grove and surrounding towns, a high portion of employment options are part-time or minimum wage jobs. Many people commute more than an hour to Springfield and surrounding cities for work and resources.

“We’re serving a group of people that just can’t seem to get ahead,” explained Kevin. “About half the people we serve are elderly, and there are working parents trying to make ends meet, but they’re still on that line where you just can’t get ahead.”

Ozarks Food Harvest helps meet the need by delivering food and Senior Boxes to the Love Center twice a month. Kevin shared, “Without Ozarks Food Harvest, we wouldn’t be passing out the food that we do today. We would still be in a little building, probably with a few cans here and there that somebody might donate. We’ve been partners with Ozarks Food Harvest so long that we’ve gotten to grow with them. As they grew, we grew. It’s a blessing to know that we can get food from somewhere when we need it.”

The Love Center has been serving their community for an incredible 40 years and has partnered with Ozarks Food Harvest for 34. Although the need is high right now, we’ll continue to work together to meet the need and end hunger in Wright County. If you would like to help the Mountain Grove Love Center fight hunger, the pantry accepts donations of food and funds. Contact Kevin Jenkins at 417-254-0917 to learn more.

Thank you to the Mountain Grove Love Center for being the front lines of hunger relief in Wright County. Transforming Hunger into Hope wouldn’t be possible without your hard work and compassion.