Ozarks Food Harvest Hungerthon raises $140K

Photo provided by Ozarks Food Harvest

Ozarks Food Harvest’s Denise Gibson, far left, and Bart Brown, far right, volunteer with Kevin Howard and Liz Delany on the annual Hungerthon fundraiser.

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Ozarks Food Harvest’s 20th annual Hungerthon event brought in enough fundraising dollars to feed 467 at-risk children during every weekend of the school year.

The 20th annual weekend fundraiser that ended this morning collected $140,168, down from $144,845 in collections last year but above a goal of $135,000, said spokesperson Jordan Browning. Ozarks Food Harvest partners with iHeartMedia for the fundraiser that provides weekend backpacks with food for students, according to a news release.

As with previous years, local radio personalities Kevin Howard and Liz Delany hosted the radiothon that started 6 a.m. Friday at the Tower Theater. Volunteers spent 30 hours over the weekend on Hungerthon on the phones accepting financial pledges.

"We are so thankful for the partnership we have had with Kevin and Liz for the past 20 years,” Ozarks Food Harvest President and CEO Bart Brown said in the release. “It’s truly a blessing to see the community come together to support food-insecure children.”

Businesses and organizations, including MassMutual, Heart of America Beverage Co., CoxHealth, Harter House and The Musgrave Foundation, matched backpack funding donations made over the weekend.

Ozarks Food Harvest recently announced that in fiscal 2018, it distributed 17.2 million meals, its largest total to date.