Kristy Carter, Class of 2022, was featured in the Springfield Business Journal’s Business Spotlight: “Meeting the Need.”

Kristy is the Executive Director of Least of These, Inc., the only full service food pantry serving Christian County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state of Missouri. The growth in the number of people living in poverty has far outpaced the population growth, with over 10,000 people in Christian County who now live in poverty. Least Of These, Inc. started in 1998 as a community outreach project of a Nixa Church. In our 1st month, 7 families received food. By the end of the 1st year 100 families were receiving food. In 2023 that number grew to 11,036 families. Least Of These, Inc. continues to experience steady growth every year.

[From the article]

With a pool of roughly 300 volunteers, around 50 of them help during the nonprofit’s weekly distribution days to serve Christian County residents, held Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, as well as Thursday evenings. Volunteers serve as shoppers for clients in the Ozark facility’s 18,000-square-foot warehouse, as they assemble groceries based on the client’s preferences and needs. Items vary from week to week, but meat, dairy, canned fruits, vegetables and soups, along with bread, diapers and hygiene items, are among those most frequently provided.

Least of These also takes its distribution on the road to Chadwick, Clever and Spokane to offer monthly mobile pantries as a service to those in outlying areas of the county. It sources most of its food and other items from Ozarks Food Harvest Inc., Convoy of Hope and Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc.

“Being a member agency at Ozarks Food Harvest, that means that we’re able to get free food from them,” Carter says. “Our government commodities allotment comes from them, but we also can buy from them.”