Rich Hill, Missouri
Located in far western Missouri, the tiny town of Rich Hill is 70 miles due south of Kansas City and a stone’s throw from the Kansas border.
Once a thriving coal mining town, Rich Hill’s downtown today is dilapidated and littered with vacant storefronts. The shrinking population is 1,393, as of the 2010 U.S. Census, and 37% of children under 18 live below the federal poverty line. 30% of wage earners earn less than $10,000 a year.
Rich Hill caught Family-to-Family’s eye when Executive Director Pam Koner watched the 2014 documentary “Rich Hill,” a Sundance Film Festival prize winning film about the lives and struggles of three impoverished Rich Hill teenage boys.
With mainly low wage job opportunities and a higher than average unemployment rate, Rich Hill is the perfect recipient of our Sponsor A Family program.
Family-to-Family’s partners in Rich Hill are the Rich Hill Elementary School and The Rich Hill Ministerial Alliance. Families in need are recommended to us by the school principal, and once sponsored, pick up their monthly groceries (purchased from the local Food Fair store) at the Ministerial Alliance.
Community Partners:
Jani Drake, Principal
Rich Hill Elementary School
320 East Poplar Street
Rich Hill, MO 64779
Mark Kailbourn
The Rich Hill Ministerial Alliance
215 East Park Ave.
Rich Hill, MO 64779
Learn more about the hardships facing Rich Hill.
The Poverty of Relentless Disappointment: Rich Hill and a Vanishing American Dream

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