The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri feeds the hungry

The main point of any nonprofit organization is to help out a worthy cause. Most people can agree that nonprofits are positive forces in society, but there is a difference between acknowledging their deeds and actually helping carry them out. A lot of times that disconnect can have a huge impact on funding, and because most of the funding goes to the cause anyway, many charities have a hard time keeping afloat.

The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri is not your typical nonprofit. In 2012 it distributed more than 28 million pounds of food to the 32 Missouri counties it serves. The organization can provide 12.5 meals for every dollar given to it. Donations are almost wholly used for acquiring and distributing food for the needy; in 2011, 98.1 percent of all donations were spent for that very purpose.

Putting their money where their mouth is

One thing that sets the Food Bank apart from other charities is its ability to give its supporters a tangible idea of where their donations are going. Its visibility in the community is higher than most nonprofits, and that’s no accident. Publicity is part of any good business, and the Food Bank is so well organized that it pretty much is a business, albeit one that serves a noble cause.

“We run the Food Bank like a business, looking for efficiency and effectiveness in everything we do,” Executive Director Peggy Kirkpatrick says.

That efficiency and effectiveness is evident in Food Bank programs such as Buddy Packs and the Mobile Pantry. Buddy Packs give kids a way to extend their schools’ free or reduced lunches and breakfasts into the weekends and over holidays. Because those school breakfasts and lunches are sometimes kids’ only guaranteed source of food, the packs the Food Bank distributes fill a vital gap.

“I don’t think any child should ever have to be hungry,” board member Ann Littlefield says.

The Mobile Pantry brings food to the rural areas in the 32 counties it offers its services to. Because these areas don’t have a concrete place to supply resources, the Mobile Pantry comes once every month to six different counties to distribute food. In 2010, the pantry distributed 993,642 pounds of food.

“We are always looking for ways to get food into areas where people need it,” Littlefield says.

It’s programs such as these that board members say get people to notice and want to give to the Food Bank. Member Dave Machens says the organization is highly successful in demonstrating that supporters’ money and donations are not being spent in vain.

“I think that, as a donor, you always want to see your money’s doing what you want it to do,” he says. He believes the Food Bank is exemplary on that front.

“The community sees that they use their money in an efficient way,” Littlefield says.

A persistent need

Kirkpatrick remembers being so moved by the plight of the hungry in Columbia that she decided to do something to help.

“I worked at the university and kept seeing homeless people eating, and sometimes sleeping, in a fraternity Dumpster,” she says. “Unfortunately, I saw this for nearly seven years before I said a prayer to God asking him to do something or send someone to do something. The next thought I had was: ‘What about you, Peggy? You’re someone.’ I was working at The Food Bank two months later.”

Although the Food Bank has been ever increasing in its food-gathering efficiency — Littlefield estimates they collected around 30 million pounds of food in the first six months of 2013 — the need for food assistance has been growing with it. The Food Bank saw an increase of 20 percent in the number of people seeking assistance in those same six months as compared with 2012, Kirkpatrick says.

In the Food Bank’s area, there are 121,000 people defined as “food insecure,” meaning they don’t know where they’ll get their next meal. Machens says he hopes the Food Bank’s work can help people not only eradicate hunger in the short term but also help them out of poverty in the long run.

“We have seen the need increase every year,” he says. “Somehow we have to slow that down.