Outreach Coordinator, Full Circle Gardens
Ozarks Food Harvest
Jessica Allen currently works for Ozarks Food Harvest as the Outreach Coordinator for the Full Circle Gardens Department. Her team works to grow healthy local food for area pantries, domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, senior centers, afterschool programs, and other local programs working to alleviate food insecurity. The program also works with local growers to glean produce from area farms to share the harvest with hungry folks and to prevent unnecessary waste, as well as to educate the community on food sovereignty, nutrition, gardening skills, and waste diversion. Her job, specifically, is to provide gardening supplies and education to the agencies Ozarks Food Harvest serves across its 28-county service area in Southwest Missouri. This is in addition to coordinating programs like seed distributions, plant giveaways, and administering garden mini-grants. She is certified in trauma-informed garden education and works to incorporate kindness and inclusion as key pillars of any garden she is assisting in.
Previously, Jessica worked with Springfield Community Gardens and helped to build the Amanda Belle Farm in partnership with Cox Health. She has worked for Victory Mission’s Help and Hope Food Pantry as the Pantry Coordinator and co-founded the Bear Pantry at Missouri State University during her Graduate studies. Food justice and holistic wellness is a big passion for Jessica, and her time at Missouri State helped to nurture that passion and provided many opportunities to follow those ambitions and build a career out of caring for others.
Jessica completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in Social Work from Missouri State University.