Snowmass resident rescues tons of food, opens stigma-free pantry in the Roaring Fork Valley
Every week, Gary Warr rescues 2,000 pounds of food from grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, and hotels throughout the Roaring Fork Valley for redistribution to local residents facing food insecurity. He collects day-old loaves of bread and other baked goods, oddly shaped produce, ready-to-eat meals, and other foods nearing their “sell by” or expiration dates. Rescued items also include refrigerated juices, tea, coffee, eggs, cheese, and milk — perfectly good-to-eat foods that would otherwise go to waste.
A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Warr moved to Snowmass in 2012 to teach snowboarding. When his snowboard clients began offering him their leftover food at the end of their stays — food he gladly accepted — it occurred to Warr there must be a lot wasted when tourists leave town. In 2020, he founded Harvest for Hunger, with the idea of collecting the leftovers to give to area food pantries.
“When the COVID pandemic hit I saw these opportunities,” he said. “I saw a lot of food going to waste. I just decided to try something, and it has grown.”
However, collecting the food via word-of-mouth from vacationers proved to be inefficient. Some people called with offers of open containers of unusable food.
“I could only use 25% of what was given,” Warr recalled.
At the same time Warr was launching Harvest for Hunger, he was also volunteering at a Food Bank of the Rockies mobile pantry in Aspen, where he worked with Katherine Sand, director of Aspen Family Connections, a Pitkin County family resource center. She suggested he collect food by going to the source — grocery stores and restaurants.
Warr heeded Sand’s advice and began driving around to various Roaring Fork Valley businesses.
“I went from picking up small amounts [of food] to 500-2,000 pounds every time I did a route,” Warr said. “The first year, I rescued 67,000 pounds of food.”
In that first year, with the help of grants from the Aspen Community Foundation and the Karl Arthur Severson Foundation, Warr was able to purchase an all-wheel van for Harvest for Hunger, further aiding his efforts.
In Harvest for Hunger’s second year of operating, Warr diverted 107,000 pounds — nearly 54 tons — of food from the waste stream, including more than 4,000 pounds from the Aspen Food and Wine Festival alone. He’s also collected leftover food from the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Millions of people in the United States struggle to access food while millions of tons of food end up being wasted daily, according to Feeding America, the country’s largest food rescue organization of which Food Bank of the Rockies is a member.
Along with operating Harvest for Hunger, Warr also began partnering with Food Bank of the Rockies to provide food for its mobile pantries in El Jebel. He also supplies food to LIFT-UP, a Rifle-based nonprofit that supports food pantries in Aspen, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, New Castle, Rifle, and Parachute. (LIFT-UP is also a Hunger Relief Partner of Food Bank of the Rockies.)
On December 26, 2023, Warr took his hunger-relief efforts a step further by founding a food pantry in Snowmass, located inside Snowmass Town Hall. The pantry is open five days a week, eight hours a day — a rarity in the world of food pantries.
“Not only that, but our food pantry is stigma-free,” Warr explained. “There’s no data collection, we won’t look over your shoulder, we’re not checking immigration status or financials. If you’re hungry, we want you to eat. Some people are living paycheck to paycheck. I feel if you need food, you should get it. You can go there on your way to work or on your lunch hour.”
Kids, adults, parents, and older adults all use the Snowmass food pantry. Since January 2024, the pantry has more than doubled the number of households if serves, from 240 to more than 550. It’s something Warr is extremely passionate about, observed Sand, who added that Warr is vocal in his belief that there should be no barriers when it comes to food.
“He’s passionate about this stigma-free food pantry in Snowmass where there is such a need,” she said.
When it comes to who the food pantry supports, it’s a wide range of community members.
“We have so much food; it’s amazing,” Warr said. “We’re serving lift operators, housekeepers, people doing any service job where they might be earning $15 an hour while paying $4,000 a month in rent. A lot of people drive from Rifle, Silt, and New Castle to the Roaring Fork Valley to work.”
Warr has prior experience helping people who have lost everything. He worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for nine years, where he helped people safely rebuild their homes after hurricanes and other disasters. He now runs the Adult Ski Program out of Aspen Snowmass; his days off are spent doing administrative work for Harvest for Hunger and collecting food. He also manages volunteers, maintains the nonprofit’s website, manages expenses, services the van, stocks the shelves, applies for grants, and pretty much anything else the organization needs. During the winter, when Warr is busy teaching skiing, a part-time employee helps with the food collection routes.
As a Hunger Relief Partner, Harvest for Hunger purchases some of its food items at a discount from Food Bank of the Rockies. The groceries he purchases — including shelf-stable canned goods like corn, beans, and tomatoes, as well as pasta and staples — supplement what he collects from food rescue.
Before Warr started his food-rescue work, “there was no one in this area rescuing food,” said Sand. “He had the energy and imagination. As a country, we waste a huge amount of food. In just our valley, Gray is reducing the waste by hundreds of thousands of pounds. He’s keeping it out of the landfill and supporting people who need it.”
