Strengthening our Partnerships
Dear Hunger Relief Partners,
For me, partnership is a relationship based on mutual respect, common vision, and a shared commitment that results in positive change. During my first few months here at Food Bank of the Rockies, I have seen firsthand our reliance on strong partnerships to achieve our mission of nourishing our neighbors facing hunger. We remain dedicated to strengthening our partnerships through mutual support, which recognizes the unique skills, resources, and knowledge that each of you bring to further our vision. During a recent partner survey, we heard from many of you about ways we can improve and are excited to take our partnerships to the next level. Over the coming months and year, we will strive to deepen our joint impact, improve the quality of our partnerships, and further live out our values of service and collaboration through:
- Enhanced communication to ensure partners are provided with the support they need to be successful, including knowing where to go to receive clear and timely responses.
- A high level of customer service that exemplifies our values.
- A deeper understanding of community and partner needs, as well as potential solutions.
While the road ahead has many challenges, we are looking forward to our continued engagement to grow our partnerships.
To leave you with one of my favorite proverbs, thought to originate from Burkina Faso in Africa, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” We want to go far with each of you and commit to the long-term journey of real, sustainable change.
Warm regards,
Terrill Kucera
Director of Programs
Important Dates
- July 3 – Orders accepted for July 6 until 3:00 p.m.
- July 4 – Food Bank of the Rockies closed for Independence Day
- July 8 – Partner Support open 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
- July 11 – Orientation at 10:00 a.m.
- July 20 – Orientation at 1:00 p.m.
- July 31 – Food Bank of the Rockies will be closing early. Food pick-ups and Fresh Food Center until 11:00 a.m. Orders accepted for August 2 until 3:00 p.m.
To sign up for orientation or for questions about any of the dates above, contact
partnersupport@foodbankrockies.org. For our full, detailed calendars, please click
here.
Advocacy/Policy Update
State Legislative Session Wrap-Up
Feeding Colorado was pleased to see the Colorado State Legislative session end well this year! Here are our policy highlights from this session:
- HB23-1158 – PASSED
- The bill creates the Colorado Commodity Supplemental Food Grant Program to provide grants to county departments of human services or food banks that have a contract with the state for purchasing supplemental food and distributing food packages to low-income older adults. The bill requires the General Assembly to appropriate $1 million from the General Fund to the Department of Human Services (CDHS) for the program in FY 2023-24 only, and allows unspent funds to be used for the same purpose in FY 2024-25. CDHS will administer and establish rules for the program’s implementation.
- HB23-1006 – PASSED
- This bill requires employers to make income tax credit opportunities like EITC and CTC aware to employees.
- SB23-159 – PASSED
- This bill renews the Colorado Food System and Agriculture Committee and extends the sunset review to 2026.
- SB23-119 Department of Human Services Supplemental
- Allocated $14 million to the Department of Human Services to issue to food banks and food pantries.
Farm Bill Watch
The Farm Bill is due to be reauthorized later this year. Check out Feeding America’s
Farm Bill Legislation Watch Page, which includes our network’s Farm Bill priorities, fast facts, and an overview of this important legislation. Feeding Colorado will be in Washington D.C. this month to discuss Farm Bill priorities with the Colorado and Wyoming delegations.
Feeding Colorado Staff Changes
It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Effie Rorke, Executive Director, as she transitions to a new role with USDA this summer. Effie was instrumental in getting Feeding Colorado’s advocacy efforts off the ground and secured vital funding for our network at the state and national levels over the past three years. We wish her all the best with USDA!
Get Involved!
Are you interested in sharing why you care about fighting hunger with members of the Colorado legislature? Email Sarah Gregory at Feeding Colorado (
sgregory@feedingcolorado.org) to learn more about opportunities to testify on legislation related to hunger in the 2023 legislative session.
Grant Opportunities
Nonprofit Infrastructure Grant Program
The
Nonprofit Infrastructure Grant Program is administered by DOLA through Eight Regional Access Partners (RAP). View the website for the RAP who serves your region of interest. Thanks to many community foundations in our state for stepping into this role.
As of May 1, the Nonprofit Infrastructure Grant Program will begin communicating and providing technical assistance to nonprofits through RAPs and stakeholders.
Applications will open on July 5 and close August 31.
Organizations can request up to 30% of their budget up to a maximum request of $100,000.
(If working with a fiscal sponsor or agent, this 30% limit applies to the budget of the group applying, not the budget of the fiscal sponsor/agent.)
Eligible Use of Grant Funds:
- Data Technology needs – data collection and technical infrastructure
- Professional development – staff and board
- Strategic planning and organization development for capacity building, fundraising, and other services
- Communications
- Existing program expansion, development, or evaluation
- Up to 10% of requests may cover administrative fees
Ineligible Use of Grant Funds:
- Capital improvements (IT Infrastructure is not considered a capital improvement)
- Real estate or land acquisition
- Payment of debt
- Advocacy or lobbying
- Organizing
- Endowments or reserves
Background: These are American Rescue Plan Act funds that were carved out of the state legislature to provide “grants to small community-based nonprofit organizations for infrastructure funding to help mitigate the financial hardships of the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
Program Updates
Compliance Reminders
Online Training Log In – You’ll Need It Soon!
Next month we’ll be announcing the annual certification requirements for Food Safety and Civil Rights courses. Are you ready? Do you have an active
NeoGov.com account? Do you remember your password? Don’t fall behind on the due date for these important courses – if you don’t have your username (usually your email) and password handy, please contact Partner Support today:
partnersupport@foodbankrockies.org.
As a reminder, these courses are required for all of our program partners to complete annually. The information ensures you are providing food to neighbors in need in a safe and equitable environment.
Partner Support
We Heard You! Important Delivery Ordering Update.
We heard from many partners that ordering for delivery can be confusing because the date selected did not match the actual date of delivery. We are pleased to announce that we have made the following change to the order process:
- THE NEW WAY: When ordering on Agency Express, select your actual DELIVERY DATE when checking out.
- THE OLD WAY: DO NOT select the day before your delivery date.
For example, if you receive delivery on Friday, June 16, please select Friday, June 16, when reserving your appointment and checking out. DO NOT select the day before (Thursday, June 15) – this is the old way.
This applies to reserving your appointment date/time in the scheduler
and when checking out.
Please see images below of how to schedule and checkout with the correct date, based on a Friday, June 16, delivery date example.
We are still operating on a four business-day delivery ordering schedule. Partners receiving delivery will still need to order four business days before your delivery date.
If you have any questions about this new process or timeline for placing orders for your deliveries, please contact
partnersupport@foodbankrockies.org.
State Funding Providing Free Items for Partners
We would like to update you on the ways that — together — our network will be able to help more neighbors with more food through the Colorado Emergency Funds (CEF) recently awarded to Food Bank of the Rockies.
What was received and how will it be used?
Food Bank of the Rockies has received $5.4 million from the State of Colorado to be spent by June 30, 2024, to help our neighbors struggling to afford food. We are committed to spending
100% of these funds on food purchases for our community neighbors. The food we purchase will be available to our partner organizations at no cost. Food Bank of the Rockies will not retain any of the funds for administrative or operational costs.
How are we deciding what food to purchase with these funds? We’re asking you to weigh in.
Through conversations with over 50 hunger-relief leaders who attended Partner Networking Sessions in the last few weeks, we are collecting feedback on products needed to adequately meet the increase in need you are seeing. If you did not have a chance to attend one of those sessions, we would still appreciate hearing from you.
Please use this link to provide us with information about what you need to adequately serve our neighbors facing hunger in your community.
Over the next year, we will continue to ask for your needs and advice. The types and quantities of items will be determined by your feedback, so please be open and honest in sharing your thoughts.
We’re using historical information to get a quick start. As soon as the award was announced by the state, we began to look for items that have been historically popular with our partners.
When will the products be available?
As they arrive, these products will become available on Partner Express. The number of free products will continue to grow as we are able to make more purchases. We plan to increase purchases for at least a year.
How can we order CEF foods for our program? How much can we order?
CEF foods will be available to our pantry and meal center partners on Partner Express. To ensure equitable access for our neighbors, we will limit the amount of CEF free products that can be ordered by each organization. These limits will be closely monitored to ensure that our neighbors facing hunger across our service area have the opportunity to access additional food resources.
We will review orders and may make changes if a partner is exceeding the limits set to ensure equity of distribution. If a partner needs more of a product than the limits allow, the same products will be available at the regular cost.
Searching for free CEF products
- As products are received into inventory, we will make them available to partners on Partner Express.
- They will be identified with “CEF” in their description, which will be searchable as well as available at no fee. See the example below:
THANK YOU! We are grateful for the opportunity to support you in ensuring the neighbors you serve have access to the food they need to thrive. We hope that providing more free food to our partners over the next year will help to address the increased need in your community.
We value your feedback and welcome your questions. We will be providing opportunities for consistent feedback on the process, including the types of foods you’d like us to purchase and quantity limits, throughout the year. We hope that you will partner with us to make this process equitable and supportive of all our neighbors facing hunger.
Should you have questions about these products or the process to access them, please contact our Partner Support team directly at
partnersupport@foodbankrockies.org. We appreciate your partnership and are truly thankful for your compassion and efforts in serving our neighbors together.
EverGreen Boxes ™, a program of Everyday Eats
The Government Programs team will be hosting our next quarterly training for EverGreen Boxes ™, a program of Everyday Eats, on Tuesday, June 13, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Attendance of this meeting is highly encouraged for all participating partners as we will be discussing new waitlist guidelines put in place due to reaching our state-allocated caseload maximum for our service area. This training session will be a great opportunity to network with peer partners and discuss best practices. As this is the first time in many years that we have needed a waitlist for EverGreen Boxes ™, a program of Everyday Eats, we are looking forward to learning together. As always, this training will be recorded with presentation slides and shared out later for those who cannot attend. We are also happy to schedule a follow-up webinar for those who cannot attend and for follow-up questions on this topic. For further questions or to schedule a follow-up training, please contact Britni Stupin at
bstupin@foodbankrockies.org.
We’ll see you there!
Join Zoom Meeting
Food for Kids Update
Still Time to Provide Meals to Kids This Summer
It’s not too late to apply for the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)! Help us get free meals to kids over the summer who will be missing out on school lunches and other regular nutrition programs available during the school year. Please also help spread the word to other organizations who support children’s programming. You can access the fillable PDF application in our Partner Portal under
Partner Forms & Documents in the Food for Kids dropdown menu. The application can be downloaded and saved to your computer to type your answers directly into the form.
If your organization hasn’t participated in SFSP before and is interested in learning more about the program, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Any questions regarding qualifications or the application process can be directed to our Food for Kids email at
FFK@foodbankrockies.org.
Culturally Responsive Food Update
Supporting Newly Arrived Neighbors from Our Southern Border
Several of our partners are supporting newly arrived neighbors from the southern border who are integrating into the Denver metro area. Many of these individuals and families are residing in hotels and shelters and may have limited access to cooking facilities, which makes providing the typical grocery items not always appropriate. We would like to hear from you if you are struggling to meet the needs of these neighbors in terms of the quantity and types of foods you have available so we can support you to address these barriers. Please send your feedback to partnersupport@foodbankrockies.org.
Additionally, if you have neighbors in need of hunger-relief services that you are not able to immediately meet, please do not refer them to our distribution center. Please support these neighbors by utilizing foodbankrockies.org/food to refer them to another partner organization or 211.org (or call 2-1-1).
Updated Food Preference List Available
An updated version of our Food Preference Suggestions by Culture has been added to the
Partner Resource and
Culturally Responsive Food Initiative pages of our website. This resource document includes Afghan, Eastern Shoshone, Ethiopian, Northern Arapaho, Russian, Somali, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and a newly expanded Latin American list that includes focused lists for Colombian, Cuban, Mexican, and Venezuelan preferences. The food lists include information about preferred staples, foods to avoid, and cultural holidays that have important food items. Our hope is that these lists can be used to create a community where diverse food preferences and customs of individuals are accepted and honored. These lists can be used as a starting point to bring dignity to the food pantry experience for all.
Do you have additional suggestions? We would love to hear from you. We will continue to collect feedback and update this list. If you have additional feedback about these lists, please reach out to
CRFI@foodbankrockies.org.
Nutrition Update
New Cooking Videos Available
Fresh, easy, kid-friendly snacks are always on the menu during summertime! Watch our one-minute videos to make
Berry Frozen Yogurt Bark and
Sweet Apple Nachos with six ingredients or less. While you’re there, check out our full
Cooking Demos playlist on YouTube.
Email Jonelle, our staff registered dietitian, at
nutrition@foodbankrockies.org for printable recipe cards with QR codes to the videos (English/Spanish). We welcome recipe ideas anytime.
Link2Feed Recruitment
Sign Up for July Link2Feed Training
We will be hosting Link2Feed training on July 10 at 12:00 p.m. and July 27 at 9:00 a.m. Please
click here or email
L2F@foodbankrockies.org to sign up for these sessions. If these dates do not work for you, please send us an email and we will do our best to accommodate.
New Program Staffing Announcements
Welcome Our New Production Cook Lead
Please join us in welcoming Nick Fyles, our new production cook lead. Nick’s favorite restaurants are Maggiano’s and Chili’s. He is the proud uncle of his roommate’s dog, enjoys video games, amateur video game development, and writing music. Nick’s favorite vacation destination is Orlando, Florida. He likes acting and occasionally auditions for roles around Denver. Welcome to the team, Nick!
Partner Highlight – Project Worthmore
Project Worthmore was founded in 2011 by Frank and Carolyn Anello as a response to the acute need for assistance of the refugee families in their community.
From their start offering makeshift English classes in living rooms, they now offer six comprehensive programs to thousands of refugee clients. These programs include Community Navigation, Understanding Neighbors, English Language Classes, Worthmore Dental Clinic, DeLaney Farm, and the Yu Meh Food Share.
Around half of their staff are from the refugee community, helping them to better listen, empower, and support people who have come here to rebuild their lives. Strategically located off East Colfax, Project Worthmore is in the heart of the refugee community and therefore easily accessed by their clients. Their team and impact continue to grow as they play a role in supporting people during the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
In addition to a staff that collectively speaks 13 languages, Project Worthmore’s Yu Meh Food Share dispersed 20,770 pounds of food to 1,200 individuals in April 2023. Of those pounds, 15,144 came from Food Bank of the Rockies. This month they will start supplementing their shares with bountiful, community-grown produce from their DeLaney Community Farm. The farm is five acres large and supports refugees through sustainable agriculture and community building.
Htee Ku, Project Worthmore’s current dental assistant, was newly arrived in the U.S. after spending 14 years of her life in a refugee camp. She spent six months in the hospital battling leukemia while the rest of her family struggled to rebuild their lives here in Colorado. She couldn’t speak English and was nervous about her future. “America is my home now, and it’s where I belong,” she says.
Thank you, Project Worthmore, for all your hard work! It is inspiring to see the mobilization of organizations providing direct support to folks during this refugee crisis, and we are honored to support you through it all.
Client Resources
New SNAP Support Line Available
A new SNAP support line is now available directly on Colorado Department of Human Service’s (CDHS) website
cdhs.colorado.gov/snap or by calling 800-816-4451 (toll-free) Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., providing an update to current cases only. SNAP recipients or applicants can now receive real-time information about their benefits and case status and receive general SNAP updates.
For people needing to apply for the first time, application assistance is available through Food Bank of the Rockies by calling 303-375-5851, or you can set up an appointment by emailing
fbrsnap@foodbankrockies.org.
View Flyer
CareerDash is here to help individuals launch careers in business development or recruiting!
CareerDash offers an eight-week self-paced program that is a 5-10 hour/week commitment. With 1:1 live sessions, CareerDash’s industry-experienced coaches take peoples’ existing experience and train them with the skills needed for career performance and the mindset for career success. For more information, see the flyer below, contact
inger@careerdash.com, or call 888-901-2376 ext. 2.
View Flyer
Thrive
Thrive is a free, faith-based employment support program that helps job seekers go deeper in jump-starting their job search and careers.
Once job seekers finish the workshop, they will have an opportunity to be paired with a free coach and get connected with employer partners in a wide range of industries. You can learn more about Thrive workshops at
ThriveColorado.org.
Open Position Spotlight
SNAP Outreach Representative
The SNAP Outreach Representative will be responsible for conducting outreach and educating populations on eligibility for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) to increase participation across Food Bank of the Rockies’ service area. This role will screen clients for eligibility and help them with the application process using the state’s online application tool, PEAK. In addition, the SNAP Outreach Representative will develop partnerships and infrastructure to conduct outreach and application assistance at community-based locations and Food Bank of the Rockies’ partners’ sites to provide greater access and minimize barriers for clients applying for SNAP.
For full job postings and to see all opportunities with Food Bank of Rockies, please visit foodbankrockies.org/about/join-our-team. For more contact information, please
click here.
Food Bank of the Rockies is an equal opportunity employer and offers paid time off, health, dental, and 401(k) benefits.
