Carlene

Carlene has a story incredibly similar to so many other seniors.  Her husband passed away, she lost her home, she lost a majority of her income and she now needs food assistance as a result.  Carlene is so grateful for the Totes of Hope-Seniors program and for all hunger relief programs that exist to assist men and women just like her. 

Miyo

You wouldn't know from Miyo's conagious smile and laugh that hunger is an concern in her life.  She relies on our Totes of Hope-Senior program to help fill her pantry each month with items that are often too expensive to purchase.  After losing her husband and dealing with muliple major health issues, Miyo came to a place where so many seniors find themselves.  Not quite sure how to make ends meet. 

Volleyball Club Donates 3,500 Pounds of Food

Generous Coloradans organize and donate food to us through food drives all year round. SUV's will pull up to our front office and unload box after box of food.  A family and their children will bring a bag of food they picked out at the grocery store. Or a company will organize a drive that produces thousands of pounds of food and our trucks will go out and pick it up. Folks never quite know how much food will be collected when they organize a drive, so we love seeing the results of people's hard work and creativity. Example...the Juggernaut Volleyball Club out of Wheat Ridge!

This competitive volleyball group has 15 teams, 149 players and approximately 20 coaches/staff members. This year the club's Parent Advisory Committee suggested that the club take part in community service. One member mentioned doing a food drive for us and the idea started taking shape quickly. The drive ran from April 9-April 21. The first week the player groups were encouraged to organized team competitions. During those two weeks, players would arrive with food, check in for weigh in and collection. During the two weeks they sent email updates to all families, added posts on Facebook and posted team status information throughout the club. They're a competitive club so adding competition into the mix was a motivator!

We're excited to report that this group called us a couple weeks back, asking if we could send a truck out to pick up the food collected. They filled up an entire garage, bringing their poundage total to approximately 3,500 pounds! We were thrilled with the success of this first time food drive. It's amazing what can be accomplished when our community works together. THANKS for all your hard work Juggernaut Volleyball Club! 

Announcing National Senior Month

We have a heart for Seniors at Food Bank of the Rockies.  This population of our neighbors is so often forgotten and invisible.  Many seniors reside in apartment home settings.  Others are home bound and aren't able to get out and about very easily.  So many of our senior neighbors struggle to make ends meet and unfortunately, that struggle often includes food insecurity. 

May is National Senior Month.  What a perfect opportunity to highlight a group of people who have wonderful stories to tell and needs that FBR and our community can help meet.  FBR and Ameristar Casino Black Hawk have partnered over the past few years to provide senior clients with Totes of Hope-Seniors.  This program provides monthly bags of healthy food items, including produce, canned fruits and vegetables, pasta sauce, dried milk etc. to over 10 senior high rise sites around Denver.  Many of these sites are Volunteers of America sites, which has been a fantastic partnership for FBR.  We thoroughly enjoy visiting these sites and chatting with seniors who benefit from the Totes of Hope program.  It's heart warming and also so difficult to learn of medical difficulties that have brought them to a place of needing food assistance.  Or hearing of loss of loved ones and the inability to make ends meet after that loss.  There are so many stories to be told and so many opportunities to give back to these folks. 

Check in this month for videos, photos and personal testimonies of just a few of the thousands of Colorado seniors who find themselves reaching out for help.

Meet Merrill. He explains that he couldn't afford to keep his home and now lives in a high rise through Volunteers of America. After paying rent, there isn't much left over. And so he doesn't eat very much.  He's so grateful for the Totes of Hope-Seniors program, bringing totes of healthy food to his building every month. We don't think Merrill should have to worry about where his next meal is coming from.  What do you think?
 

Bruce Randolph Students in Action

Last year marked the first annual Students in Action: Continuing the Legacy day of service for high school students at Bruce Randolph School. This year, the tradition of service continued.  Last Friday, a total of 750 students, teachers, staff members, and community volunteers went out into Denver and provided approximately 3,400 volunteer hours.  FBR was blessed with 80 volunteers as a result of this initiative!

Some of the services students provided included visiting with military veterans at the VA Hospital, putting together food baskets here at Food Bank of the Rockies, helping with community gardens with the GrowHaus and the Urban Farm at Stapleton, park clean-up in conjunction with Denver Parks and Recreation, decorating meal bags for terminally ill patients with Project Angel Heart, and many others. 13 other high schools in the Denver community participated in their own small scale service projects on this day.  

Jennifer Esquivel, a junior at Bruce Randolph, had this to say about the service day, "The reason why I volunteer is because I like to help others. Whenever I have the chance to volunteer I take it because at the end of the day I know I have accomplished something big. Service is a very important thing at Bruce Randolph School because we like to show how much we care about our community. The Students in Action day of service at our school gives us the opportunity to help people and organizations in our neighborhood. After the service day, I will continue to be involved in service by helping my community and by volunteering at places that need my help the most."

We were thrilled to be a part of this awesome day of service!  Thanks so very much to Bruce Randolph School for your dedication to giving back to your community.

VOTE, VOTE, VOTE

FRIDAY IS VOTING DAY!!!!!!!


One in seven Coloradans are deemed food insecure, not knowing where their next meal will come from. That equals over 730,000 Coloradans.


Helping the hungry in the Denver area is as easy as logging onto Facebook and voting!


As part of Walmart's "Fighting Hunger Together" initiative, the company has been holding a Facebook campaign in April where you can go onto their Facebook site at www.facebook.com/walmartand vote for one of 200 communities, hardest hit by unemployment. Denver is one of the communities on the list! One community will receive $1 million to fight hunger and 20 other communities will each receive $50,000.


We want Denver area food banks, FBR included, to receive some of this money and support. So we're asking everyone in Denver to go on the site this Friday, April 27, and vote for Denver! You can vote every day until April 30 -- but we're asking you to at least vote on Friday! Let's help our Denver area food banks win a portion of these funds!


You can go right to the Denver voting page at: http://apps.facebook.com/walmartfighthunger/profile/1861


THANKS!!!!

A Trip to Yuma Provides....

Last week we took a trip to Yuma to meet the generous folks at CHS.  Cooperatively, the M&M Cooperative, Grainland Cooperative and United Plains Cooperative collected an outstanding total of $23,729.52 for Food Bank of the Rockies in their Harvest for Hunger Campaign.  In just 16 days, CHS employees, customers and partners collectively raised the equivalent of 2.45 million meals, including 652,000 pounds of canned and fresh foods and over $360,000 in cash and grain for FBR and a host of other hunger relief organizations.  Not only did this surpass their goal for 2012, it was 450,000 meals more than were collected in last year's drive. 

M&M cooperative is a business unit of CHS Inc., the nation's leading cooperative, owned by farmers, ranchers and co-ops across the United States.  Held March 1-16, the CHS Harvest for Hunger food and fund drive harnessed the power of CHS retail locations to help address America's growing hunger problem.  THANKS to all those involved in this outstanding gift!  Your efforts will provide 94,918 meals through Food Bank of the Rockies.  We appreciate your efforts so very much and hope to continue this wonderful partnership for years to come!