Shortage forces food pantry to dip into its cash reserves

The Ozark County food pantry last month spent $7,000 from its cash reserves to support the 250 Ozark County families it served, food pantry director Tom Bentele said last week. “We always hope we’ll have enough food donated so we don’t have to spend money to augment that, but last month we had to buy quite a bit,” Bentele said.

One reason for the expenditure was that the food pantry gave out meat vouchers to help families prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday. Small families were given $10 meat vouchers, and larger families were given $15 vouchers. “Multiply that by 250, and it gets expensive,” Bentele said. “We also bought items like dressing, vegetables, fruit - things families can use for holidays.”

The food pantry is part of a network of facilities served by Springfield-based Food Harvest.

“Usually donations are really down in late summer and early fall, plus we had a span of time last year when we were sharing what we get from Food Harvest with Joplin after the tornado, and now we have a share going to the East Coast after the storm there,” Bentele said.

He said the food pantry will benefit from the Share the Harvest program, which lets hunters donate deer harvested during hunting season to the food pantry.

“The last two years we got 29 deer each year. That sure helps, and it goes a long way. It’s all ground into hamburger and comes to us frozen in two-pound packages,” he said.

Missouri Department of Conservation agent Jerry Kiger reports that as of Monday afternoon, 59 deer had been donated to the Share the Harvest in Ozark County, the highest number ever donated. (See Kiger's report, page 15.)

Bentele said donations are welcome – and needed. “And cash is always good because that helps us when we have to purchase food, like we did last month,” he said.

Checks can be made payable to the Ozark County Food Pantry and left at or mailed to the Ozark County Health Department, P.O. Box 180, Gainesville, MO 65655. Food items may be left at the health department office on Third Street in Gainesville. Families in need of assistance should contact OCHD for more information (679-3334).

The food pantry’s distribution center is in the former Hodgson Mill manufacturing building next to the Ozark County Ambulance barn on the west side of Gainesville. Hours of distribution are from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the second Wednesday.