Operation Food Search named Exemplary Advocate Cohort

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Operation Food Search (OFS), a nonprofit hunger relief organization based in St. Louis, was recently named an Exemplary Advocate Cohort by the Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH).

Being one of 15 selected organizations in the state of Missouri, OFS will receive a $500,000 award over five years. MFH, Missouri’s largest health foundation, awards approximately $45 million annually to health-focused nonprofits.

“It is a huge honor to be named an Exemplary Advocate Cohort,” Lucinda Perry, director of strategic initiatives at OFS said.

With the honor of being named an Exemplary Advocate Cohort, OFS will be sending two team members – Trina Ragain, director of policy, and Sarah Swearer, manager of public policy – to nine MFH-sponsored annual workshops. At the workshops, all 15 advocate organizations’ representatives will be participating in peer-to-peer learning and engaging in organizational development. MFH will also provide individual/group coaching and technical assistance.

“We look forward to utilizing the newly developed skills, along with the unique tools and tactics, that Trina and Sarah will learn throughout their five years of training,” Perry said.

MFH works to improve the health of Missourians through partnership, experience, knowledge and funding. Its program is designed for the advocate organizations to “generate systems-level change in order to challenge assumptions, shift paradigms, disrupt patterns and develop new models of thinking as a group that works together.”

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