Greetings from the O’Reilly Center for Hunger Relief! I’m pleased to share with you the good news The Food Bank received last month — for the third consecutive year, Ozarks Food Harvest was awarded the highest possible rating from Charity Navigator.
Only 12 percent of charities in the country have received four star ratings for three consecutive years. This honor comes from the leading nonprofit corporation that evaluates charities across the country.
Five Pound Apparel and Ozarks Food Harvest began a new partnership this week, both online at 5poundapparel.com and in stores.
For every T-shirt sold, 5 Pound Apparel will provide a donation to Ozarks Food Harvest to purchase five pounds of food. Children, families and seniors struggling with hunger across southwest Missouri will benefit from the partnership. This is not the first time the local retailer has raised funds for Ozarks Food Harvest, but this new initiative will provide year-round support for those in need.
Just in time for Easter, Ozarks Food Harvest received a donation of 151,200 eggs from Opal Foods, headquartered in Neosho. The Food Bank has received half a million eggs from Opal Foods since the partnership began in 2008.
The Musgrave Foundation granted a total of $120,000 to select Ozarks Food Harvest partners in February. The funding will be utilized for food for local hunger-relief efforts. The regional food bank, the umbrella organization of more than 200 pantries and programs, will leverage the $120,000 to $1.2 million in food distribution.
Eighty grocery stores partnered with Ozarks Food Harvest during the holidays to help Check Out Hunger, collecting a record $49,786 in check-out lanes across the Ozarks.
Area Boy Scouts will go door-to-door to collect nonperishable food items for Ozarks Food Harvest beginning March 14. The 26th annual Scouting for Food drive will wrap-up with a one-day collection at Walmart Supercenter locations in Springfield, Ozark and Joplin.
Community members can either donate in grocery sacks left on their door, or donors can give at a local Walmart on March 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
More than 250 people give blood in the Ozarks daily, and while every donation helps someone in need, a new program from the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks allows blood donors to make an even greater impact.
LifePoints Lift awards points to people every time they give blood. Those points, which have a cash value, can then be donated to one of ten LifePoints Lift partner agencies, including Ozarks Food Harvest.
Arvest Bank collected nonperishable food items and monetary gifts for Ozarks Food Harvest during its fourth annual bank-wide 1 Million Meals campaign during September and November.
Banks in the Springfield and Nixa area collected 1,434 pounds of food and $4,484, while the Joplin-area banks donated 1,825 pounds and $8,565. This adds up to more than 68,000 meals.
Thirty-nine schools and 24 community partners battled in Ozarks Food Harvest’s fourth-annual school food drive competition, Food Fight, collecting 39,450 pounds of donations, or 32,875 meals — the most ever raised for this food drive.
