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Our partner charities are the frontlines of hunger relief in the Ozarks. They consist of food pantries, senior centers, houses of worship, schools, meal sites, shelters and residential programs who serve our neighbors facing hunger directly. Run by generous and compassionate people, they’re the first faces folks see when they seek help – but they also operate on limited funds and are often led by volunteers, especially smaller organizations in rural towns. They have a lot to juggle to keep our neighbors fed, and most local charities can’t do it on their own.

Ozarks Food Harvest’s role as The Food Bank for southwest Missouri is to support our partner charities so they can worry less about sourcing food and focus more on serving folks facing hunger with a smile on their faces.

Thanks to the scale of our partnerships and operations – such as our 102,000 square foot warehouse and our 20-vehicle transportation fleet – The Food Bank can source bulk quantities of food at reduced or no cost so we can help our partner charities serve more families facing hunger. Sources of food include donations from manufacturers and wholesalers, food purchased in bulk, federal nutrition programs, retail rescue and community food drives. We can also temporarily store and sort that food at a scale our partner charities just don’t have the capacity for.

Once food arrives at our warehouse, we move it quickly to reach our neighbors facing hunger. If you were to visit our distribution center each month – and sometimes each week – there would be completely different foods on our shelves. That’s how quickly we turn over our inventory to keep food flowing to our community. Donated food is checked and sorted by volunteers for food safety guidelines, and purchased food is organized and put on trucks to be delivered to our 270 partner charities at no extra charge, thanks to donors like you.

Kaela Anderson, regional lead and administrator at Ozark County Senior Center, shared, “We are extremely grateful and blessed to be able to have the partnership that we do with [Ozarks Food Harvest], because we’re able to get so much more product than we would be able to get [on our own]. You’re allowing us to spread our budget, to maximize our budget.”

The Food Bank is able to move 2 million pounds of food efficiently each month due to the scale of our operations – a scale that’s made possible by donors like you. In a supply chain of hope, your gifts help The Food Bank purchase food, transport it to our network and support our partner charities as they feed our neighbors facing hunger.

You can continue to help by donating funds and time at ozarksfoodharvest.org/how-to-help. Thank you for your partnership in the movement to end hunger.