Your Harvest House

Harvest House exists to stabilize and restore families in crisis by meeting immediate needs while fostering long-term self-sufficiency. Our goals are to: (1) Expand access to essential resources—food, clothing, and financial aid—to ensure no family in Johnson or Tarrant County goes without basic necessities; (2) Strengthen programs that move clients from crisis to stability, including Getting Ahead, ESL, and financial education; (3) Build operational capacity through strong leadership, clear processes, and sustainable funding; and (4) Cultivate community partnerships that reduce duplication, share resources, and promote collective impact. Guided by faith and compassion, we seek to restore dignity, stability, and hope to every neighbor we serve.

Harvest House employs a two-part approach: stabilization and restoration. We meet urgent needs through our Food Pantry, Resale Store, and Financial Assistance programs, offering groceries, clothing, and emergency aid to families in crisis. Simultaneously, we invest in long-term growth through education and empowerment—providing classes like Getting Ahead, ESL, and budgeting workshops to build financial capability and confidence. Internally, we strengthen infrastructure with clear policies, technology improvements, and a growing reserve fund. Externally, we partner with churches, schools, and local agencies to expand reach and create holistic, coordinated solutions that address poverty at its root.

Founded thirty-nine years ago, Your Harvest House is led by an eight-member board of directors and run by twenty-seven staff members. Since her arrival in 2016, our executive director, Jennifer Woods, has strengthened community relationships and implemented internal changes which resulted in a 400% increase in organizational revenue. Our diverse funding base comes from trusts, family and corporate foundations, organizational fundraising, earned income from our resale shop, and donations from individuals, companies, churches, and local government. We constantly seek out new connections so that Harvest House will continue to meet the needs of our client base for years to come. As a result, 95% of organizational income goes toward direct services.

Since 1984, Harvest House has provided food, clothing, and financial assistance to low-to-moderate-income residents of our community. In 2022, 7172 individuals received food from our pantry, 3544 used clothing vouchers in our resale shop, and 393 applied for financial assistance. These three programs make up the backbone of our ministry. A recent survey showed that 78% of clients feel Harvest House has relieved financial pressures for them and their families, and this data confirms our effectiveness. However, the same survey showed that 28.9% of those surveyed were interested in learning more about financial stability. Others were interested in topics such as nutrition, parenting, and stress management. Having recently remodeled our main campus, we now have a multipurpose meeting room which we plan to utilize for onsite educational purposes. Partner organizations have already shown an interest in this program, and over the next year, we plan to implement classes that will help clients regain their financial and emotional stability.

Our resale shop recently expanded, and our customer base grew accordingly. In order to staff the larger shop during an unreliable labor shortage, we aim to hire special needs adults from the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorder (the Center). These employees will sort merchandise, stock shelves, and assist customers. Harvest House will benefit from the reliable staff which will enable us to minister to more financially stressed clients; and the Center will benefit by having an outlet for their students to step into the community. Harvest House intends to build a highly organized program in which we vet participants, and our autonomy will ensure the quality of the endeavor. Once the program is established, we plan to expand it to include other less-hirable employees such as veterans, previously incarcerated individuals, and untrained students. We also foresee cooperation with local community colleges and civic government.

Due to our recent remodel, we now have private rooms for client interviews, and our food pantry has been transformed into a store-like environment. Both of these changes will directly affect the comfort level of clients. We foresee client intake becoming less frenzied, and we anticipate our clients feeling more comfortable discussing personal details. The pantry changes will normalize each client’s shopping experience and therefore decrease stress. Our staff will be better equipped to meet the needs of our current clients with gentleness, and we will be prepared for the expected population surge. In the long term, success for our organization would be effortlessly meeting the food security needs of our community’s expanding population. We currently serve 12,000 clients a year, and by 2030 we may be serving 56% more. We believe each of them will be positively affected by the changes Your Harvest House is making today.