(COLORADO) — On Wednesday, Oct. 15, Senator Michael Bennet hosted a roundtable with various food bank leaders to discuss the rise in food insecurity in Colorado communities.
Bennet opened the roundtable by stating that families are struggling with rising costs and that July’s Big Beautiful Bill was the largest cut to SNAP. Bennet spoke with representatives of food banks and pantries across Colorado. Nat Springer, CEO of Care and Share Food Bank of Southern Colorado, said the need for food banks has grown, but funding has dropped.
Bob O’Connor, CEO of Weld Food Bank, said 1,700 people are being served a day through emergency food provisions, an increase from 300 a day during COVID; however, the food bank is down by 900,000 lbs of food provided through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). O’Connor said those who receive food packets are not getting as much food, such as some days they may not have meat provided.
TEFAP provides more than 30% of all the food distributed by Colorado’s food banks and up to 50% of all the food in food pantries. The reduction of funds for this program had a large impact on food supplies for food banks.
Participants of the roundtable said that due to a lack of grants and funding, instead of getting a variety of proteins, they are having to buy fish sticks as they are cheaper, stretching the funds they do have.
On top of issues with funding and food resources, the roundtable spoke about the increase in need in communities.
Brianne Snow from the Family & Intercultural Resource Center said a third of the Summit County community is coming to food banks for food. Snow spoke of the difficulties communities in Summit County face, such as a higher cost of food due to the mountainous location and jobs within the tourism and service industries that are seasonal with unstable hours.
“I know that we have lots of families that are feeding their kids, and they are going without, or they are watering things down,” said Snow. “We had one person that told us, ‘we are not eating, we’re just not eating meals anymore, we’re just trying to piece it together.'”
Many speakers talked about the diversity of those in need in the community, and not everyone requesting assistance is below the poverty line. More people asking for help are above the poverty line, and Springer said they are seeing active duty service members coming in for help.
“I think we have this tendency to believe… that they’re people who are in poverty, but the individuals who are experiencing issues of hunger right now are our neighbors,” said Amber Henning, Director of Development and Community Relations for Food Bank of the Rockies, Western Slope. “They are educators, healthcare workers, restaurant servers, construction workers, individuals who are working full-time, and are now having to make those choices between do I pay for rent? Do I pay for utilities? Or do I put food on the table? When it comes to those fixed-income things, they kind of scream a little bit louder, and a lot of times food is one of those things that suffer.”
The discussion did carry some good news, as Springer said they are seeing an increase in community donations, which helped close the gap seen by a reduction in funding and food assistance.
If you would like to help your local food bank, Springer said there are many ways to assist the community.
“Every single person can help their neighbor through multiple ways. You can do a food drive at your house, in your neighborhood, your community, church, or school,” said Springer. “You can volunteer at the distribution centers in the Feeding America network or any of the 1,200 partner agencies that are really doing the important work on the front lines, bringing food to people in their communities every day, or you can donate.”
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