A 3rd of Coloradans lack entry to wholesome meals — a tough actuality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and longstanding gaps within the state’s meals provide system.
Starvation Free Colorado, which is a part of JHB’s Season to Share program, goals to slash that share by serving to individuals navigate complicated meals help packages and by advocating for kids’s entry to free, wholesome meals in school.
“We completely can as a society finish starvation if we set our minds upon that objective,” CEO Marc Jacobson mentioned.
The necessity is especially acute after federal officers in March stopped a brief COVID-era increase to funds by way of the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program, the nation’s largest federal meals program. On common, month-to-month advantages had been diminished by $90 per particular person.
The sum of money an individual receives relies on numerous elements, together with earnings and family measurement. For the reason that COVID-19 extra help ended, every particular person receives, on common, about $181 a month — or $5.94 a day, in line with information from the Heart on Price range and Coverage Priorities.
Almost a tenth of Coloradans — about 540,000 individuals — use this system. Two-thirds of the Colorado households that use SNAP have youngsters, and a 3rd are caring for aged or disabled individuals, in line with information from the Heart on Price range and Coverage Priorities.
Folks eligible for advantages usually battle to navigate the multiple-step course of to enroll, Jacobson mentioned. That issue is elevated for people who find themselves disabled, who don’t communicate English or who don’t have houses. The group has helped 28,000 Colorado households navigate the applying course of.
“A number of of us are worrying about if they’ll reliably or persistently present wholesome meals for his or her households,” Jacobson mentioned. “It shouldn’t be that means.”
Benu Amun-Ra, who makes use of SNAP and is a member of Starvation Free Colorado’s Group Council, mentioned the pandemic exacerbated inequities and gaps in Colorado’s meals provide chain.
“There’s a big hole to getting meals on the desk,” she mentioned.
Throughout the pandemic, meals banks and pantries struggled to supply recent, wholesome meals. Amun-Ra, who can be a farmer, helped join meals banks with native producers who may present greens, fruits and different nutritious fare. Colorado must proceed efforts to assist join farms to household tables, she mentioned.
In 2024, Starvation Free Colorado will proceed its deal with the implementation of a program to supply free, nutritious lunches to Colorado schoolkids. The group helped lead a profitable poll initiative in 2022 that created Wholesome Faculty Meals for All, which can present grants to Colorado colleges to purchase and serve native meals.
Colorado turned the third state to supply free wholesome faculty meals when Proposition FF handed, and several other different states have adopted swimsuit since.
Youngsters who’ve steady entry to nutritious meals be taught extra and have fewer behavioral issues, in line with the group.
“With meals costs nonetheless excessive, individuals want as many sources as doable to assist them entry wholesome meals,” Jacobson mentioned.
Starvation Free Colorado
Deal with: 1355 S. Colorado Blvd. Suite 201, Denver, CO 80222
Variety of staff: 36
Annual funds: $5.8 million
Variety of shoppers served: 57,000 within the final yr