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Volunteers Needed As MO National Guard Members Are Reassigned From Ozarks Food Harvest

Ozarks Food Harvest

Missouri National Guard members who have been helping Ozarks Food Harvest sort food since last spring are leaving Friday, June 25.  The National Guard stepped in when the food bank told volunteers to stay home because of the pandemic.  Now, Ozarks Food Harvest is asking people to step in as volunteers to take Guard members’ places.

OFH spokesman, Jordan Browning, said between 30 and 45 National Guard members have been helping since last April, and they’ve sorted more than 95,000 pounds of food per week.

"So, as you can see, that's still going to be a significant thing, that we still need to get food out of our door, because we're distributing between about two to 2.5 million meals across the 28-county service area every month," he said, "so we're in definite need of volunteers to make sure that all of our food pantries continue to have food on their shelves and no one has to worry about where their next meal's going to come from."

He said the need for food distributed through Ozarks Food Harvest’s 275 hunger relief organizations hasn’t eased up since the beginning of the pandemic when many people lost their jobs.

Sorting the food that comes in to the food bank is a huge part of their operation, according to Browning.  He said the job would require 20 additional full-time employees if they didn’t have volunteers.

There are other volunteer opportunities, too.

Find out more at ozarksfoodharvest.org/volunteer or call (417) 865-3411.

Michele Skalicky has worked at KSMU since the station occupied the old white house at National and Grand. She enjoys working on both the announcing side and in news and has been the recipient of statewide and national awards for news reporting. She likes to tell stories that make a difference. Michele enjoys outdoor activities, including hiking, camping and leisurely kayaking.