Community Foundation of the Ozarks

CFO is excited to host its second quarterly Agency Partner education session on  Tuesday, Jan. 10 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the CFO Community Room, 425 E. Trafficway.  Please join us for this helpful, free session for our nonprofit agency partners.

We have a very special program this quarter, which will focus on disaster preparedness and response. In the wake of the Joplin tornado, nonprofits in our region have become more aware of their plans (or lack of plans) in case of a disaster. We are bringing a panel of experts to this quarterly session to discuss with you the ways you can become more prepared for the unknown as an organization.

Our panel will consist of the following individuals:

Erin Coryell – Program Officer, Midwest Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery for the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation based in Eden Prairie, Minn.;

Don Greenlee - Program Director of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Jasper and Newton Counties (Joplin); 

Tim Connell – Commercial Insurance Consultant at Connell Insurance, Inc.; and

Ryan Nicholls - Director of the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management.

This panel will be moderated by Tiffany Applegate of X-Factor Consulting. Each panelist will discuss his or her area of expertise, and there will be time for questions at the end. If you have a specific question you would like Applegate to ask the panel and would like to submit that question in advance, please send it to bdierks@cfozarks.org.

Parking for this session is available in the garage across the street from our office or in the CFO lot behind our building.

Please RSVP to Bridget Dierks at bdierks@cfozarks.org or directly to voicemail at (417) 447-5360.  Space is limited, so RSVP soon to ensure your seat in this informative and helpful session.

We’ve been getting some questions this week from benevolent-minded gift givers who want to make a donation to a CFO fund, but aren’t sure how to do it.

First of all, it’s a thoughtful, easy gift: Many folks simply don’t want much in the way of things, and a gift to a favorite nonprofit agency in their name is a wonderful way to go.

CFO has more than 400 agency partners, most of which you can donate to online. Simply click here to go to our online donation portal. Be sure to fill out all of the information (writing the name of the agency you want to donate to in the “description” field). You will also be asked if this is a gift donation, and to provide the name of the person for which you are making the donation. It’s that simple.

Click here to view our list of agency partners. If you have any questions about the process, or about the agencies affiliated with CFO, please call us at (417) 831-6199 or e-mail mlemmon@cfozarks.org.

CFO affiliates and their local food programs completed the Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge II this fall by raising $125,000 to match an equivalent challenge grant from the Walmart State Giving Foundation to Ozarks Food Harvest.

In all, 23 of the CFO’s 44 affiliates participated in the Hunger Challenge, which leverages the total of $250,000 at a 10:1 ratio of buying, transporting and distributing food through the OFH network of feeding programs and pantries.

The Walmart State Giving Foundation awarded a $125,000 grant to Ozarks Food Harvest for a second challenge opportunity earlier this year after last year’s success with a $100,000 grant for the original Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge.

In this year’s Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge II, 25 food programs across the region worked with the 23 CFO affiliates to raise matching funds by the end of September.

Grant presentations, shown in the gallery below, have been made with affiliate and food program leaders in a number of the communities over the past month. The participating affiliates were: Aurora, Bolivar, Cassville, DACO, Dallas, Dent, El Dorado Springs, Finley River, Houston, Jacks Fork, Lockwood, Marshfield, Monett, Mount Vernon, Mountain Grove, Neosho, Nixa, Oregon County, Seymour, Stockton, Southwest Missouri, Taney County and West Plains.

“We appreciate the cooperative spirit between our affiliate foundations and their local food pantries to jointly tackle this matching grant opportunity,” CFO President Brian Fogle said.

This program began in response to a national report  – “Hunger in America 2010” – describing the extent to which hunger plagues Ozarks communities. An estimated 155,000 Ozarkers face chronic hunger issues, according to the report.

“We are grateful for the funding from the Walmart State Giving Program which allows us to leverage hunger relief support to our local Ozarks communities,” said Bart Brown, CEO at Ozarks Food Harvest.

“There’s a growing population of clients who are not eligible for government assistance such as WIC or the National School Lunch Program. This ‘gap’ truly relies on our member pantries and feeding sites to help feed their families,” Brown said. “The current child food insecurity rate is sobering. More than a quarter of our children — five percent higher than the national rate — now face hunger, or do not know where their next meal is coming from.”

Ozarks Food Harvest is the Feeding America food bank for southwest Missouri, serving more than 300 hunger relief organizations across 28 Ozarks counties in addition to long-term relief sites in Joplin. The Food Bank reaches 20,000 individuals weekly and distributes one million pounds of food monthly. OFH was named the 2011 Small Business of the Year by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. Learn more at ozarksfoodharvest.org and at facebook.com/ozarksfoodharvest.