The Pueblo Food Project is set to apply for another grant from the Colorado Health Foundation, program manager Megan Moore told the Pueblo City Council during a work session last week.
The current grant from the Colorado Health Foundation expires at the end of September. The new grant would award the Pueblo Food Project $400,000 over two years.
“This will be another set of money to continue our mission,” Moore told The Chieftain.
The latest grant would be the third round of funding provided to the Pueblo Food Project by the Colorado Health Foundation. The organization first received seed money and was later awarded implementation funds to continue its plans.
Pueblo Food Project provides a community-wide impact
The Pueblo Food Project, a community coalition of more than 150 members, distributed 23,000 food items from its east side pantry in 2021 and spent $356,402 on local food procurement. The coalition also served more than 500 families with meal kits.
In recent years, the organization has had additional funding to operate—its budget increased from $85,000 in 2019 to $455,000 in 2021, all provided by the Colorado Health Foundation and other entities. Read also : Food truck Friday night at Moncus Lafayette. The Pueblo Food Project used most of these funds to replenish its community pantry to support its mission of creating an equitable food system in Pueblo County.
So far in 2022, the coalition has been awarded $370,000.
“The purpose of what we’re doing is to make sure we change the food system,” Moore said. “The food system touches people every day, whether they realize it or not.”
The coalition’s youth council, made up of high school and college students, also distributed meal packages and organized joint cooking classes.
In their research, the members of the youth council found that students of their age are interested in healthy eating, but find it difficult to combine the ingredients and concepts of a healthy diet. The classes helped those students blend those ideas with a focus on health, Moore said.
The Pueblo Food Project partnered with Civic Canopy, another nonprofit, to evaluate its programs and implement a distributed leadership model—using a community-driven approach—as it plans for its future.
The Pueblo Food Project provides food assistance to more than 20 organizations. One of those beneficiaries is the Pueblo Rescue Mission, a shelter for people experiencing homelessness. The rescue mission uses the Pueblo Food Project’s pantry as a food source to help feed dozens of residents and the 2,000 to 6,000 visitors a month who seek outdoor meals.
“What they provide us with is extremely helpful, and there would definitely be a void — one that would leave us scrambling to find additional donations — if we didn’t have them,” said Melanie Rapier, executive director of the Pueblo Rescue Mission. “This is an important contribution.”
The rescue mission orders food weekly from the Pueblo Food Project and provides meals in the field every day at 4:30 p.m. It receives private donations and extra items from the Care and Share Food Bank, but most of the food comes from the Pueblo Food Project.
Pueblo Rescue Mission staff members typically provide residents and visitors with balanced meals that include protein, vegetables and fruits, which the Pueblo Food Project makes possible, Rapier said.
On Tuesday, 32 visitors – including 12 to 14 children – were ready for a meal at the rescue mission’s door.
Some Pueblo Rescue Mission residents are using the shelter to save funds as they go through the transitional housing program, and many are waiting for subsidized housing options; others may be experiencing financial difficulties after losing their job.
“(The Pueblo Food Project) is beneficial to us because we have a 99-bed facility,” Rapier said. “We have residents that we have to feed daily with food provided by the Pueblo Food Project.”
Planning for the future
The Pueblo Food Project also launched community meal preparation classes last year. This may interest you : Africa Seeks Local Repair When War Worsens Food Crisis. During parent brainstorming sessions, it was determined that families needed more ways to connect with recipes and healthy food options while cooking together.
The courses are held once a month, and the target audience is families. At each session, participants learn to cook alongside each other and establish healthy eating habits, Moore said.
The nonprofit coalition also wants to establish research and evaluation tools to better understand where it’s making an impact.
On Monday, the Puebla City Council approved a request to promote Moore’s part-time program manager status to a full-time role. The position will run through June 30, 2025 and will be covered by a grant from the Colorado State Department of Law.
Moore will be charged with developing a succession plan for the Pueblo Food Project to outline transition activities and determine next steps—the organization’s partnership with Civic Canopy is expected to assist in those efforts.
Moore said the coalition is putting some of its work into connecting with non-English speakers in Pueblo County and is talking with One Colorado, a Denver nonprofit, about how to better serve Pueblo’s LGBTQ community.
Chief reporter Josue Perez can be reached at JHPerez@gannett.com.
