Herschend Entertainment owns amusement properties all over North America, but its roots and founders are firmly planted in the Branson area. Jack and Peter Herschend founded Silver Dollar City in 1960, and for most of the company’s first 50 years, Jack Herschend was the company’s President, Chairman and CEO. Despite his success and the success of his businesses, something was gnawing at him.

“One in four families in Stone and Taney counties live in poverty,” Jack said. “For years, I’ve been involved in meetings and discussions about fighting poverty. We all felt good after the meetings, but the situation wasn’t improving.”

Fighting poverty in Stone and Taney counties has long been Herschend’s passion. Jack says he wanted to move “from enabling people to empowering people,” and he figured education was the best way to empower people to improve their lives.

In 2020, Jack visited Ozarks Technical Community College’s Table Rock Campus in Hollister to see how he could become involved philanthropically. Immediately, the campus president talked to him about backing a building.

“He told me, ‘Buildings don’t move people out of poverty,’” OTC Table Rock President Rob Griffith recalls with a laugh. “I agreed and talked to him about funding a social worker.”

Jack liked that idea, and thanks to his generosity, the OTC Table Rock Campus added a community resource specialist to the staff. 

In 2021, the college adopted the OTC Cares guiding philosophy, which states that all decisions at the college must be:

  •   Student-centered
  •   Data-informed
  •   Proactive
  •   Holistic

The community resource specialist helps with the “holistic” part of the algorithm by counseling students and connecting them to resources for challenges that may keep them from succeeding in the classroom. OTC Table Rock already had a staff member who had seen the need in the community and was preparing herself to fill that role at OTC or with another organization.

Amy Donovan-Munier is a Branson-area native who attended OTC and even took an English class from Griffith in 2006. Amy eventually graduated from OTC, earned a bachelor’s from Missouri State, and worked at the Table Rock campus in student accounts. A few years ago, Amy decided to pursue a master’s degree in social work at Missouri State while working part-time at OTC.

“After starting my master’s, I told Rob we need someone at OTC to work with these students who are struggling,” Amy said.

The timing was perfect for Jack’s investment and Amy’s graduation — she started as Table Rock’s full-time community resource specialist in March of 2022. Now, when students face challenges outside the classroom, they go see Amy.

“We’ve all heard about the mental health epidemic for people in their teens and early twenties, and I’m seeing that,” Amy said. “But we also have students struggling with food insecurity, homelessness and domestic violence.”

With Amy’s help, they are connected to counseling, food pantries, emergency housing and shelters. The idea is to give the students a boost over the hurdles life keeps putting in their way so they can get to the finish line.

“Students have a dream, and Amy is going to walk alongside them and travel that road with them,” Jack said. “That’s empowering, and that’s exciting to me.”