'We do appreciate it!' LINC's food distributions in LFPA program reach 11 counties
This is the way Mary Ann Slattery likes it to be.
She’s looking across plenty of food set out on tables on the sidewalk outside the Chillicothe, Mo., church that gives the Livingston County Food Pantry a home base.
Friends and neighbors are all gathered here in sunshine. Many she knows, maybe some she doesn’t. Some are helping package the food. Some are taking it home. Some doing both. It’s a community event.
When this is the scene — with the help of LINC’s collaboration with the local farmers that it has recruited for the federal LFPA food distribution program — “it’s easier for everyone to get what they need,” Slattery said.
Too often, she said, she’s not able to keep the food pantry open. And then some of those friends and neighbors in this rural Missouri town have to call her for food help. She knows some who need help instead go without.
“To have to call for help is hard,” she said. “I get calls all the time. There is such a need, such a need.”
Mary Ann Slattery, right, leads a food distribution including food from the LFPA program for the Livingston County Food Pantry in Chillicothe, Mo., March 19
On this recent Tuesday morning, LINC and its distributors delivered some 3,000 pounds of eggs, hamburger and sausage across a network of more than 80 community sites that spans 11 counties from Livingston in the north to St. Clair in the south.
The LFPA program — Local Food Purchase Assistance — is a USDA-funded initiative to help get food from local farms into communities of need. In Missouri, the state Department of Social Services is managing the program and it turned to community partnerships in the state — including LINC in Kansas City — to build the network.
LINC has coordinated much of its distribution through its more than 50 Caring Communities sites, mostly in heavily populated neighborhoods of Jackson County, but the need is strong as well in the 11-county area under LINC’s LFPA mission.
“The goal is to help food networks grow in these rural areas,” said LINC Contract Manager Jennifer Gott, “so they can continue after the LFPA program.”
Through most of the year, when Missouri farmers’ fields are busy, the LFPA program focuses on purchasing and delivering fresh vegetables. Since the program began in May 2023, LINC has worked with some 60 local producers to deliver more than 435,000 pounds of food, reaching more than 35,000 people.
Tina Sims of Chillicothe was one of the visitors who took home sacks of food from the sidewalk tables of the Livingston County Food Pantry.
“The donations mean a lot to me and my family with the meat prices going up,” she said. “I appreciate every kindness. It means a lot to me and my grandbabies and my family to eat.”
“They remember a lot of us senior citizens,” said Chillicothe resident and pantry customer Nancy Ewing. “And that makes a lot of difference.”
The LFPA program targets areas of need, then makes it simple for community centers to put produce and protein in the hands of families and individuals. No one has to feel exposed to accept the food. It’s shared with the community, no questions asked, no income forms to fill out.
Both the social service workers and the people who receive the food appreciate it, said Shelly Harden, a community health worker in the HCC Network.
Harden, from the Lexington, Mo., clinic, was helping package food in HCC’s Carroll County Clinic in Carrollton.
“Today is food day,” Harden said. And the packaged food will be going out “without stipulations or requirements.”
“It’s meaningful,” Harden said, “because in our community many people are having to choose if they’ll pay for groceries or rent.”
Health care workers with HCC Network, including Shelly Harden, center, package eggs and meat from the LFPA program on “food day” in Carrollton, Mo.
In the town square of Carrollton, H.E.L.P. Services of Carroll County stacked cartons of eggs and meat at mid-morning at the front entry of its thrift store.
“The eggs and protein are very much needed,” said Denise Fergason, director of H.E.L.P. — Harmonized Efforts to Lessen Poverty. “This stuff will be gone by two o’clock this afternoon.”
Carrollton resident Sheri Cardenas loaded a sack of food for her mother, happy to be able to assure “she has plenty of food in the freezer.”
“Most of the elderly around here live on limited incomes,” Cardenas said. “And groceries aren’t getting any cheaper.”
In Richmond, Mo., Director Pat Mills at the Ray County Senior and Nutrition Center took in the day’s shipment of eggs and protein to bolster the offerings of the town’s food pantry.
“The meat we’re getting today is going to be wonderful for them,” she said of her steady line of visitors. It’s not just senior citizens who need help, she said, but any of the residents in the county “who are having trouble making ends meet.”
It’s important that the food is available and easy to take home, she said, because she knows many people who need help are hesitant or shy to accept it.
“I have a lot of people who say, ‘No, I don’t want it because there are a lot of people who need it worse,’” Mills said. But she answers, “If you need it you need it. I don’t care who you are. Come get it. We’ll gladly give it to you.”
By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer