At the heart of the San Luis Food Sovereignty Initiative is the acequia. Both the irrigation ditches that help keep the San Luis Valley the productive agricultural land it is, and the Acequia Institute provide the lifeblood of a movement that is seeking to reclaim a food system and the heritage attached to that system.
In 2014, Growing Home’s leadership understood it was time to work to expand beyond the limits they saw in the direct service they had always done, to a model that included deeper community engagement and community-driven change.
It is important to begin this way. Spirit of the Sun is an Indigenous womxn-led nonprofit serving Denver and its surrounding suburbs which are located on Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Tséstho’e (Cheyenne), hinono’eino’ biito’owu’ (Arapaho) land, Comanche, and more than 48 other tribes’ sacred land.
At the Family & Intercultural Resource Center of Summit County, the motto is “promoting stable families and strong communities since 1994.” While promoting stable families remains the long-serving organization’s focus, much additional attention is being paid to the experience of those families who use the food resources available there. The intentional shifts to enhance user experience, as well as the intersectional nature of each consumer’s life has resulted in some big changes in stigma reduction, education and improved environments for the organization.
No one expects to need to rebuild their lives. Still, thousands of adults and families find themselves in need of doing just that. And for 36 years, a safe harbor in that particular storm has been the Gathering Place. This refuge for rebuilding lives provides shelter, basic necessities and supportive programs to women, trans folx and children who are experiencing poverty and homelessness.
It all started when Thai Nguyen joined other mothers at her child’s school to try and infuse more healthy fresh foods into their school meals. To make the budget work, they picked up unused food from a local food bank.
Now the Kaizen Food Rescue has grown and provided 5 million pounds of food through 21 partner organizations in 2021. “I saw what would happen to the food we were rescuing. Just our little school and what we could load in our cars to share with our kids and our families,” Nguyen said.
Village Exchange Center’s food access program serves Aurora and Metro Denver’s immigrants, refugees, and communities experiencing food insecurity. Through strategic partnerships, the food pantry meets community needs for fresh produce, meals, toiletries, and diapers weekly.
The Sister Carmen Community Center is not an emergency response organization. The 44-year-old non-religious nonprofit found itself in the middle of need for one of Colorado’s most destructive fires, the Marshall Fire, that swept through Boulder County destroying thousands of structures, most of them homes. People in the community who had used the community center before for the various food, rent and other assistance provided were the first to trickle in. But they were quickly followed by hundreds of others who suddenly found hotels full, rent prices skyrocketing and a need to simply talk their way through the shock of losing everything in a matter of minutes.
Rising Up understands how food coincides with not only nutrition but how cultural identity has become equally important. As a partner agency of FBR, deliveries have increased to include foods that are commonly consumed by the different cultural and ethnic groups represented in Morgan County. However, it must be noted certain communities, for example east African do not want canned items. While the food item may be a traditional food, it is rejected because the packaging, in this case a can, diminishes its quality.
Founded in 2013 and formerly known as the Colorado Springs Food Rescue, the group’s flagship program designed to reduce food waste while increasing food access, quickly evolved into “organism with a mission” — multi-faceted programming working together to cultivate a healthy, equitable food system in the greater Colorado Springs community.
