Cassville High School Students Build Blessing Box for Mercy Hospital

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Cassville High School Students Build Blessing Box for Mercy Hospital

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Ettie Berneking

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Phone: 417-820-2008

Cell: 573-529-4845

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It was one of the smallest grand openings Mercy has held, but for Jennifer Beeson and the Cassville students in attendance, the unveiling of Mercy’s new blessing box was a big moment worth celebrating. To help community members facing food insecurity, students from Cassville High School built a blessing box for Mercy Hospital Cassville and filled it with shelf-stable items.

Students in the advanced woodworking class at Cassville High School built the new blessing box at Mercy.

Mercy community health worker, Jennifer Beeson, got the idea for the blessing box about a year ago after seeing her Mercy co-workers in Aurora build one of their own. “I thought it was a phenomenal idea,” she said. “It was a simple way to support the community, and I knew our caregivers here in Cassville would be eager to get involved.”

Beeson then turned to coach Robbie Artherton, who teaches advanced woodworking at Cassville High School. He and his junior and senior students were eager to build the blessing box. “My students liked knowing that this project would help their community,” Artherton said. “We also had plenty of supplies on hand since the students had recently built a deer stand and a ticket booth to help at sporting events.”

The blessing box is 4 feet by 4 feet and stands 6 feet tall. Students added two doors on the front and two large wooden shelves inside to store shelf-stable pantry items like peanut butter, pasta, canned vegetables and soup. To give the blessing box the look of a rustic cabin, they added cedar siding and then partnered with the school’s Future Farners of America program to collect canned goods.

“The students got to pick the design and really build something they are proud of,” Beeson said. “When they told me they had gathered 150 non-perishable items to put in the blessing box so it was full the same day it was installed, I was so touched. A lot of people in our community struggle with food insecurity, and this will be an easy resource for those who need it.”

The blessing box was installed near Mercy’s cafeteria entrance at the end of November, and Beeson said it’s already in use and making an impact. Beeson and Mercy caregivers will take the lead on stocking the blessing box, and community members are also welcome to donate items.

Mercy, one of the 15 largest U.S. health systems and named the top large system in the U.S. for excellent patient experience by NRC Health, serves millions annually with nationally recognized care and one of the nation’s largest and highest performing Accountable Care Organizations in quality and cost. Mercy is a highly integrated, multi-state health care system including 55 acute care and specialty (heart, children’s, orthopedic and rehab) hospitals, convenient and urgent care locations, imaging centers and pharmacies. Mercy has over 1,000 physician practice locations and outpatient facilities, more than 5,000 physicians and advanced practitioners and more than 50,000 caregivers serving patients and families across Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has clinics, outpatient services and outreach ministries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. In fiscal year 2025 alone, Mercy provided more than half a billion dollars of free care and other community benefits, including traditional charity care and unreimbursed Medicaid.