Hunger Free Colorado

Client services: Hunger Free Colorado's (hfc) client services department makes it easier for people to access food with dignity using a multilingual food resource hotline, bilingual community-based outreach and a statewide trained and supported network of outreach partner organizations. During the year, our food resource hotline, the mobile outreach team and our outreach partner organizations connected more than 28,500 households to nutritious food resources, including the supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap), the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children (wic), the national school lunch program, food pantries, and meal sites. Hfc and our partners together submitted online snap applications on behalf of more than 28,500 households while also helping them locate nearby and convenient food resources.

Policy and advocacy: during the Colorado state legislative session in the spring of 2023, Hunger Free Colorado led efforts to secure 14 million in state funding for food pantries and food banks, including 4.5 million for the food pantry assistance grant. Hfc secured 500,000 in additional state funding to support snap outreach. Hfc also advocated for the expansion of the Colorado state child tax credit, which a broad coalition of partners successfully worked to pass.

The farm to food pantry initiative: through the farm to food pantry initiative, hfc supports six regional food coordinators to build purchasing relationships between local food producers and food pantries. Hfc's regional food coordinators have provided Free technical assistance to 240 food pantries in spending funds from the food pantry assistance grant and helping to coordinate purchasing logistics such as identifying producers, ordering, transporting, and storing local fresh products. A report from the Colorado blueprint to end Hunger indicates that this program has increased the availability of nutritious, locally-sourced foods in food pantries and ensured that food pantries are able to obtain the type of high quality, culturally relevant foods that their communities want.