Category: Partner Spotlights

It was an all-hands-on deck moment in Leadville. Shortly after the March COVID shutdown, the St. George’s mobile food pantry ran out of food. The small pantry the church maintained also ran out. And the other two food pantries in the area open only one day a month were not equipped for daily operation and were shut down. For the first time, families were turned away.

It was a tough moment for a church that had provided community meals five days a week to all comers for nearly 40 years.

In the blink of an eye, Anna Scardina’s title at Benefits in Action went from SNAP enrollment specialist to food delivery and resource coordinator. And in that same eye blink, her organization – traditionally a service connector — became a direct service provider.

For Brenda Kaiser, it all comes down to relationships. Kaiser is a community outreach coordinator for the Safe and Abundant Nutrition Alliance, a collection of groups working to build a new regional food system in Western Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties. Since February, Kaiser and two other community outreach coordinators have been hard at work collecting the stories of more than 200 individuals and families…

At Boulder Food Rescue, they take the dynamics of power and access seriously. In fact, they spend considerable time every day trying hard to stand the traditional charity model on its head. It is true that the underpinning of the food rescue is an attempt to fill gaps left by traditional food access agencies and minimize the food waste, particularly with fresh fruits and vegetables, in the overarching food system.

When Ricardo Rocha tells you Bondadosa is a people first organization, believe him. There is literally no way Denver metro based Bondadosa could do what it has without that foundational belief. For frame of reference, in 2018, the organization’s first year, they delivered 380 orders for food from families who needed them.