When the early days of COVID-19 shut down restaurants and kept Coloradans at home, farmers across the state worried about losing their livelihood as produce piled up at the same time hunger relief organizations faced increasing demands for food.
They found solutions to their problems by working together, representatives of Colorado operations on both sides of the equation said.
“We lost over 60% of our revenue,” said Roberto Meza, co-founder of the 35-acre Emerald Gardens farm in Bennett. He grows microgreens year-round and operates cooperatively with Sugar Moon Mushrooms, supplying restaurants with fresh produce.
At the same time, food insecurity — the inability to access nutritious food — increased in the state by nearly 20%, according to a report by Feeding Colorado, an association of five food banks in Colorado. Hunger Free Colorado, a statewide nonprofit organization that addresses food access issues, found even higher rates in its April statewide survey, reporting that one in three Coloradans is food insecure.
For Meza, a solution for his farm came through partnering with hunger relief organizations. Purchases from food pantries and nonprofit groups “came to save our farm,” he said.
“That’s when we started to see the potential for innovative local food distribution that was meeting the immediate need and also creating viability for our farmers,” Meza said.
Food insecurity in Colorado
The increased need for food assistance related to COVID-19 was quickly felt by many food banks and pantries.
Ivan Jackson, executive director of the nonprofit LIFT-UP, which serves about 3,000 people per month through its food distribution efforts in the Roaring Fork Valley, said that when the pandemic hit, the organization experienced about a 600% increase in food need.
“I think it’s a problem that is not going to go away,” Jackson said, citing increased costs of living, gas prices and grocery items as contributing factors. “If COVID continues just as it is at the moment, I see us trying to supply as many people as many food supplies this winter as we did last winter.”
In addition to hunger and physical health effects, food insecurity has been associated with higher risks of anxiety and depression, a March 2021 BMC Public Health study found. People of color and those with low incomes are more likely to experience food insecurity, according to a 2020 Colorado Health Access Survey.
“I think a common misconception is, ‘I don’t know anyone who’s food insecure. This doesn’t happen in my neighborhood,’ ” said Erin Pulling, president and CEO of Food Bank of the Rockies. “Often, it is an invisible challenge.”
Pulling estimated the Food Bank of the Rockies, which serves Wyoming and 30 Colorado counties, served more than 800,000 people last year and distributed about 110 million pounds of food in its last fiscal year, which ended in June.
“We’ve seen a tremendous increase in need, which has not fully subsided. We are still serving more people than we were pre-COVID,” Pulling said.
One of the primary concerns for Ashley Wheeland, the director of policy at Hunger Free Colorado, is that food insecurity may worsen with the end of the increased government aid that people received during the pandemic. She cited emergency allotments in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that offer an additional $40 million per month in grocery benefits for families in Colorado.
Once the aid goes down, the demand on emergency food systems will likely go up, Wheeland said.
Building, and funding, partnerships with farmers
The Colorado Food Pantry Assistance Grant program offers funds to hunger relief organizations, in part so they can purchase meat, dairy and fresh produce from local producers.
The program came about in 2017 after members of Hunger Free Colorado’s food pantry network, now made up of 88 pantries, reported needing more healthy foods, said Kathy Underhill, food distribution programs manager at the Colorado Department of Human Services and the founding CEO of Hunger Free Colorado at the time.
“Food drives and a lot of the food that’s available in the emergency food system is shelf stable and isn’t necessarily what customers or clients or (the) community wants,” said Underhill, who oversaw the 2020 grant administration.
A 2021 report published by Food Bank of the Rockies found that fresh produce is the top requested food category, based on feedback from more than 600 food pantry users. The grant helps fund purchasing fresh produce for hunger relief organizations.
This year’s grant was administered by the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger, a project of the Colorado Health Foundation, which received 201 applications with requested funds totaling between $16 million and $17 million, grant manager Dana Wood said. But the $5.53 million program — $5 million of which was funded through the state’s emergency supplies bill, SB21-027, and the rest through donations — could meet less than 35% of the requests: $4.8 million to 145 organizations.
“I think the funding requests that we got in relation to actually what we had to give out is a perfect example of (how) this isn’t going away,” Wood said.
With the first grant funding in 2018, Meza began contacting local food pantries awarded some of the money to offer his produce and establish partnerships.
Meza said he noticed many organizations didn’t know how or where to get locally grown food, so he started helping form connections. He was later hired by Hunger Free Colorado as a regional food coordinator, one of five across Colorado who provide technical assistance to pantries that received grants and need help connecting with local food producers.
“There was just no system in place,” said Heidi Zeller-Dart, explaining why her 10-acre family farm, Dart Farms, in Berthoud hadn’t donated produce until the nonprofit UpRoot Colorado contacted her. “A lot of the local food banks and food rescues, they didn’t have a relationship with the farmers.”
UpRoot Colorado sends volunteers to farms to collect food surplus and coordinates the transportation and distribution.
Ciara Low, a founder of UpRoot Colorado, said the food pantry assistance grant offers a way to not just supply fresh produce to those who need it, but also to increase the number of people employed at farms and create a more resilient food system.
“It really just feels like a win-win-win,” Low said.
In 2020, Meza co-founded the East Denver Food Hub, a food aggregator and distributor that helps get local produce to hunger relief organizations. The operation moved into a 15,000-square-foot Denver warehouse this year.
“You’re not just getting food to people. You’re helping jumpstart new businesses, help create new jobs, and provide that sense of cooperation, transparency and trust with our local farming community, at the same time as we’re creating community wealth,” Meza said.
Grant funding impacts
Many farmers in the Roaring Fork Valley struggled with the pandemic, recalled LIFT-UP director Jackson, so the agency last year spent more than $50,000 to buy 20,000 pounds of food from about 25 local farmers as part of its Farm to Food Pantry Hunger Relief Program.
With the help of funds from this year’s grant of about $44,000, the organization aims to spend $300,000 in 2022 to get local fresh food, Jackson said.
The $87,000 in grant funding that Food Bank of the Rockies received this year will go toward supporting the new FRESH program, CEO Pulling said. The program sources 1.2 million pounds of produce each month to build mixed pallets of different fresh items and deliver them to agencies at no cost, according to Food Bank of the Rockies’ website. The program also helps provide culturally relevant food to clients.
Kaizen Food Rescue, a nonprofit organization that provides culturally relevant food to refugees, immigrants and other traditionally underserved people, is one of the recipients of Food Bank of the Rockies’ FRESH deliveries, receiving four to five different pallets that may include pineapples, watermelon, radishes and more, said founder and executive director Thai Nguyen, a former refugee herself.
About 80% of the grant money Kaizen received will go toward purchasing local produce from Meza’s East Denver Food Hub, one of their partners, allowing Kaizen to continue hosting frequent food-access events, Nguyen said. The organization serves more than 2,000 families per week, within and beyond the Denver metro area, distributing 18,000 to 20,000 pounds per day, and collaborates with more than 20 other organizations, she said.
“With the Colorado Food Pantry grant, we pretty much earmarked nearly $100,000 to purchase from local BIPOC farmers or allies,” Nguyen said, referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color. “We’re super excited to help stimulate the local economy and just, you know — keeping the funds within the community.”
Volunteers for Kaizen, like former refugee Mu Dah Di of Aurora, are also able to take home produce. Di, who said she faced food insecurity growing up, saves between $400 and $500 per month by volunteering with Kaizen, including at a Nov. 13 free farmers market event in Aurora where she helped serve nearly 1,000 people.
Such collaboration is critical to hunger relief organizations, officials said.
“For us to continue really boldly stepping up the way we have in the last two years entails a lot of community support,” Food Bank of the Rockies’ Pulling said, emphasizing the importance of donations. “Our whole model is built on collaboration.”
