Community Foundation of the Ozarks

A young girl who lost a front tooth in an accident could only have it replaced with a “flapper,” a temporary dental implant that she had to remove to play clarinet in the school band. Her family’s Medicaid coverage wouldn’t cover a new permanent tooth.

What would that do for that girl’s self-esteem, Robert Marsh asked rhetorically as he accepted the Fordland Clinic’s $9,200 grant awarded this week from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks and Commerce Trust Company through the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program.

The Fordland Clinic was one of 14 recipients of this year’s Coover grants for efforts to fight regional poverty totaling $127,500.

One of the themes in this year’s applications was for dental assistance because Medicaid funding is very limited in that area.

“There are children losing teeth who didn’t have to lose them,” Marsh said.

The Ozarks Resource Group in Buffalo also received a $5,000 Coover grant for dental services focused on preventative hygiene and education.

“This program brings toothbrushing to the schools for some kids who have never had a toothbrush in their lives,” Cheryl Eversole said in accepting the group’s grant for its “Bright Smiles” dental program.

Other grant awards were made to programs focused on similar basic needs such as hunger and homelessness. Care to Learn chapters in Clever, Rogersville and Willard received funds for their young chapters’ efforts to supply weekend backpacks, shoes, clothing and hygiene items to students in their districts. Least of  These, a food pantry serving Christian County, also received a grant to partner with Care to Learn to serve areas of the county where chapters don’t exist. They’ll use the money for a “personal care initiative” that will provide hygiene products, toilet paper and other necessities not covered by food stamps.

The Kitchen, Inc., will use its $18,340 grant to extend its “One Door” homelessness prevention services into Christian County.

Christian County has seen an increase in homelessness during the economic downturn, particularly among families who have had to “double up” with other households and then find themselves out on the street, Coordinator Randy McCoy said.

“By tying it all together in a regional approach, kids don’t have to move school districts, so it’s less traumatic for them,” McCoy said.

CFO President Brian Fogle, who presented the grants with Commerce Trust Vice President Jill Reynolds, summed up the stories from the grant recipients as both heart-wrenching and uplifting.

“I hear these heart-wrenching stories you are telling and it can get one quite dejected,” Fogle said. “The other side of the coin is the great work you are doing every day in transforming lives. You’re making a difference in someone’s life every day.”

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.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is again teaming up with Ozarks Food Harvest and the Walmart State Giving Program to tackle the chronic hunger problems that affect our region.

The 2^nd Annual Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge kicked off at a news conference at Ozarks Food Harvest today. The Walmart Foundation State Giving Program pledged a $125,000 grant toward a 1:1 match with regional food pantries served by Ozarks Food Harvest.

The participating food pantries were selected in 27 communities that have CFO affiliate foundations so that those foundations could offer fundraising support, community grantmaking awards or other types of assistance to partner with their local food banks.

“This is a great way to address hunger across one-third of the state of Missouri using a great trio of partners,” OFH President and CEO Bart Brown said.

He also discussed a new analysis of local “food insecurity” levels that support anecdotal information and a 2010 Hunger Study. The analysis shows that many people facing “food insecurity” have income and/or resources that make them ineligible for assistance programs. Many of them are people who have lost jobs, but still have homes or cars that count as assets.

“More and more clients who come to food pantries are the unemployed middle class who need assistance,” Brown said. “Technically, they’re not poor, but they don’t have any money.”

Through Ozarks Food Harvest’s buying program, the $250,000 in potential funds from the challenge grant and matching funds will leverage about $1 million worth, or 2.5 million pounds, of food for the participating pantries, food banks and mobile food banks.

The first Million Dollar Hunger Challenge was completed last year when 19 CFO affiliates raised $105,000, which was matched with $100,000 from the Walmart State Foundation.

CFO President Brian Fogle said this represents another example where charitable dollars are filling the gaps created by decreased public funding at all levels. He said this model works well because it directly serves residents in the communities where the money will be raised.

“That is philanthropy at its best,” Fogle said.

Becky Wood, Walmart’s Senior Foundation Manager from Bentonville, Ark., said the company’s State Giving Councils are comprised of local associates who determine the best use of foundation resources for  their states.

“It’s great to be a partner with you in Springfield,” she said.