Nebraska Synod ELCA

Feed the Hungry, Heal the Sick, Tend the Soul

by Jill Conway

Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church’s mission is to Worship + Grow + Serve. Helping those in need has been a hallmark of this 165+-year-old congregation. Kountze Memorial began its food pantry in the 1980s and was a weekly pantry by 2005. A free health clinic started in 2010, and both initially operated within the church walls. In 2015, they launched the “In the City for Good” campaign to erect a new building for the pantry and clinic and to welcome community partners to expand services. At the groundbreaking of Kountze Commons Community Outreach Center (KCCOC), Rev. Dean Bard, the then Interim Senior Pastor, remarked, “[W]e break ground and launch an historic initiative in response to our Lord’s call to serve people in need and minister to all people in Christ’s name.”

KCCOC is an integrated care delivery model formed to service the whole person through a partnership of four entities in one building: the Kountze Love Thy Neighbor Food Pantry, The Del and Lou Ann Weber Healing Gift Free Clinic and pharmacy, Methodist Community Health Clinic, and Lutheran Family Services (LFS) behavioral health. A typical vulnerable person faces multiple issues – health issues overlaid with food insecurity and behavioral health challenges. The partnership provides services and a plan toward finding a sustainable path forward. KCCOC opened its doors in 2017 and is connected to Kountze Memorial through a glass corridor with a donor wall to memorialize the love and generosity necessary for its creation.

The Pantry’s mission is simple: feed anyone who comes through the door. At the volunteer-run, guest-choice pantry, guests also have access to a social worker and routine health screenings, and are referred to services within KCCOC. For example, this spring a pantry volunteer noticed a regular guest parked closer than usual. The volunteer learned the guest parked where she did because she was having difficulty walking and breathing. Another volunteer who also happened to volunteer at the Free Clinic did a quick evaluation and referred the guest to emergency medical services. Later her husband reflected this special attention probably saved his wife’s life.

The Free Clinic is an all-volunteer, free health clinic and licensed pharmacy serving those in need, empowering them towards health of the body, mind, and spirit. Professional medical volunteers not only treat patients’ medical needs, but refer those experiencing food insecurity or behavioral health needs to partners within KCCOC. The Methodist partnership expands the healing capacity of KCCOC by providing low-cost health care. Methodist also accesses the Pantry for patients with food insecurity, and will send patients to the Free Clinic for services they cannot find another way to cover.

Methodist and the Pantry cohost an annual free Health Fair in the fall at KCCOC. This year, there were over 400 households represented with 31 new guests visiting the Pantry and Health Fair. Guests had access to vaccines, cancer screenings, vital signs and glucose checks, healthy eating and smoking cessation tips, CPR education, information on strokes and heart attacks, and education on fall prevention and exercise.

Lutheran Family Services tends the soul through several licensed behavioral health therapists to provide individual and family therapy, trauma care, and 24/7 crisis response and post-crisis services. If an LFS client is exhibiting food insecurity or needs primary care, therapists will refer them within KCCOC for services and may access the pantry.

A grant-funded social worker serves alongside all the partners in the building and connects people to services beyond those available onsite.

KCCOC is now its own nonprofit and continues with the collaboration of Kountze Memorial and its partners within its building and the community to cultivate love through grace and service.

Jill Conway is Executive Director of KCCOC. Jill was a civil litigation attorney and entered the nonprofit sector to make a greater community impact. She earned a Bachelor in Journalism from the University of Nebraska-Omaha and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Nebraska College of Law. She is an Omaha native and married with three daughters.