Springfield-based nonprofit Ozarks Food Harvest yesterday received two separate significant donations, a truckload of margarine and cheese sauce from a national cooperative and funding from a locally based challenge grant.
By the truckloadAt noon on Dec. 6, Arden Hills, Minn.-based national, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative Land O’Lakes Inc. donated 40,000 pounds of margarine and cheese sauce to Ozarks Food Harvest.
“Thankfully, partners such as Land O’Lakes are allowing us to offer items that are typically more expensive, like dairy, to our agencies," Ozarks Food Harvest Development Director Denise Gibson said in a news release. "Our member feeding sites can cook with these product donations, and our member food pantries will be able to offer the margarine or cheese sauce on their shopping menus.”
The donation is Land O’Lakes’ 10th donation in the second year of its First Run program, part of its Feed Our Communities initiative, which was established to help alleviate hunger by donating products to food banks on a quarterly basis.
CFO challengeCommunity Foundation of the Ozarks and its affiliates have matched a $125,000 grant provided to Ozarks Food Harvest by the Walmart Foundation State Giving Program in March.
With the
backing of the initial grant, CFO and the food bank teamed up for the second annual Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge.
During the campaign, 23 of CFO's affiliate communities participated to raise the total donation amount to $250,000, which leverages about $1 million worth, or 2.5 million pounds, of food.
“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 a separate news release.
Ozarks Food Harvest serves more than 300 hunger relief organizations in 28 Ozarks counties.
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