Food is the foundation of our wellbeing, from healthy bodies to strong minds. For those who lack this essential resource, each day can feel like a fight to survive. But community organizations are stepping into action and helping those that are food insecure. We look at one organization doing just that.
The Minnie Hackney Community Service Center is a community resource center in Joplin, Missouri. They provide a communal space for those experiencing homelessness and the food insecure to be connected to local resources. The center works with anyone in need, not only hosting meals, but also offering harm reduction services, a washer and dryer to do laundry, showers and temporary warming and cooling shelters during extreme weather.
Nanda Nunnelly is the president of the Minnie Hackney Center. She explained that the center started as a resource for the Black community in 1946 – an organization called the Negro Service Council. The center served the Black community as a place to gather, socialize and have educational opportunities during segregation. But, she said, it continued on after desegregation when most other Negro Service Councils closed, and it expanded into something for the entire community.
“What ours did was they decided then to start serving food to the elderly,” she said. “And so in this building, they would host meals, daily meals for the elderly. And again, that just kind of grew into this whole other thing.”
After becoming the president in 2019, Nunnelly and organization members had the center’s name changed to the Minnie Hackney Community Service Center, offering resources for the Joplin community. Minnie Hackney was the first executive director from the mid-40s to the mid-80s, and Nunnelly said members of the organization wanted to name the center after her for the work she did during that time.
Nunnelly explained that the center is not a homeless shelter or a food pantry, but rather an opportunity and a place to connect those in need with those local resources.
She said the center is a civic organization that has different membership options where community members or local businesses and organizations can pay a membership to help fund the operation of the building. She emphasized that the community support doesn’t stop there because the community members are the ones who bring and prepare all the food for meals. The Minnie Hackney Center connects those in need to a daily meal each Saturday along with food to take home.
Nunnelly said groups of community members come in each week with donations, with one group in charge of preparing the food and another group in charge of serving it. There were about 15 dozen eggs in their fridge when we visited in November, she said, brought in by community members for an upcoming “breakfast for lunch” meal they planned to prepare. She added that they get calls from community members wanting to bring in cookies they made or extra bagged lunches they have.
“I say often that we are community blessed, community built,” she said. “The only way that it continues to do what we do is by the community blessing us, by stepping up and being a part of it.”
Nunnelly explained that while there are several other food pantries in the area, most of them will provide daily meals during the week and then close on the weekends.
“There are a lot of different organizations that serve during the week,” said Nunnelly. “But then comes the weekend and you’re really, you know, two days. That’s a long time , especially if, you know, you have children. It’s a long time to go without food.”
So, she said, they make sure to always have their meals available on the weekends along with extra food to take home. They see upwards of 200 people during their meals, she said, adding that it used to be closer to 100 people.
“I don’t think people can understand exactly where we are right now, how, you know, serious it is,” said Nunnelly.
According to Ozarks Food Harvest, which serves 1/3 of the state, Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap shows one in five children and one in six adults face food insecurity in Missouri. Rural communities, such as Ozark and Mt. Vernon, have shown even higher rates of food insecurity — one in four children is affected. Food banks in Missouri distribute over 130 million pounds of food in Missouri each year to combat food insecurity, according to Empower Missouri.
Transportation, Nunnelly said, is a major barrier she sees affecting the food insecure in Joplin. She explained that they don’t have a bus system, and she often sees large groups of people walking from one side of town to the other to try to get food. That's why they offer food delivery.
“We do deliver meals, if people will let us know where they are, we’ll find volunteers to go out and take food out to people,” she said. "We try to eliminate as many barriers as possible.”
She added that another barrier is shame. She said a lot of times people don’t want to admit that they're in a place where they need help getting food.
“And we're all so close to being in that place,” Nunnelly said. “We’re one paycheck, one sickness, one car issue away from having to decide between, 'am I going to feed myself and my children or am I going to do this other thing?' ”
Nunnelly said accessibility and acceptance is also a barrier that can prevent people from seeking help. She told a story about an unhoused woman who recently arrived at the center to shower and do her laundry. She had all of her belongings with her as she waited for her turn, planning to do all of her laundry that day. As she waited, she sat on a nearby bench and fell asleep, with all of her things still beside her. Joplin has a no camping on public benches ordinance so the woman woke up to a $250 ticket. Nunnelly said she understands the ordinance but doesn’t think the consequence serves a purpose in this scenario.
“We just believe that no one should be getting a $250 ticket when they don’t have $2.50 to their name,” she said. “So we try to mitigate that as much as possible.”
She said the center came up with a solution. They built their own benches and will soon install them on a strip of their private property along the side of their building so guests can have a place to sit or wait when they need to.
“It's hard for people to even begin to understand that when you're houseless, everything that you have is on your back or carrying with you,” she said.
But, Nunnelly explained, they need the City of Joplin’s support too. For example, she said, police officers go out during extreme weather and find unsheltered people to bring to the center and the City also gives them their yearly certifications to operate as a temporary shelter when needed. So they work with them and try to come up with solutions that align with city rules while also bridging the gap between barriers for their guests so they can remain a resource for the community.
Nunnelly added that she feels like Joplin supports the work that the center is doing. She says the action from the community speaks volumes.
“A lot of people who love, that's what goes into this,” she said. “I’m just on a daily basis, just revived with humanity because it’s hard sometimes, you know, to see some of the things that are happening in the world. But then to know every single Saturday, you’ve got folks here that are coming in and just serving their community. It really is, it really is amazing.”
While Nunnelly feels like the center is supported by Joplin, she added that she’s seen some people get frustrated by the unhoused community taking up sidewalks or hanging around outside of buildings. And they've had some people ask, ‘why can’t this be somewhere else?’ But, she said, the center was created as a place for people that aren’t wanted somewhere else.
“There’s a lot of people that would rather just not look at that side of life,” said Nunnelly. “But not looking at them doesn't make it go away, you know? They're still here, they still need care.”
Nunnelly said the best way to help is to donate and serve the community but also acknowledge the frustration.
“I tell people, you know, I know it's frustrating,” she said. “So take that frustration and do something with it.”
She added that there are many ways to volunteer. She said many members of their community never have sit-down, one-on-one conversations where they feel listened to.
“That's another just really important part of it,” said Nunnelly. “You know, feeding not just their stomach but feeding their soul a little bit, too.”
Nico Burasco provided production support for this story.
