Like many during the pandemic, Mary Gross, executive director of the Morgan County Family Center found herself building the plane and flying it at the same time.
When Colorado started its stay at home orders, Gross and her staff realized first that the older adult commodity boxes that were typically picked up, weren’t being picked up. They jumped into action to organize volunteers to deliver the boxes to those individuals. In that process, they found out something incredibly valuable for the future. Most of the seniors who had traditionally picked up boxes had already been struggling to cobble together transportation. Many others struggled with the weight of the box once they got home. And many of the seniors they were already serving knew one other person like them who had need but no connection to food. Today, the center has moved from doing no food deliveries to older adults do supporting 20.
“We all had to work smarter and faster and be more creative,” Gross said. “These needs were probably always there, but they were really exposed by the pandemic. It took all of us coming together to support the realities that were happening in our community.”
Understanding the need they were seeing in the older adult population, Gross said her staff also knew there was more need among other people hit hard by the pandemic. As increasing numbers of families contacted the center about issues like help with rent or utilities, center staff began asking if assistance with food might also be useful. They found the answer was a resounding yes.
But like many organizations, the center struggled with how to retain some autonomy for families in the food they received. With the ability to shop at pantries shut down, center staff got creative. Rather than simply deliver the typical food box aiming to feed a family of four three meals for seven days, they innovated changes that tried to retain that autonomy for their clients. Each food box goes out with two essential ingredients: recipes and engagement materials from Cooking Matters and a gift card to a culturally appropriate local business. The recipes hope to support the use of the food, even when choice isn’t an option. And the local business gift cards allow the families to shop for additional ingredients in local stores they already know and trust. This kind of innovation was critical for the center because they have doubled the number of families they are serving. For these families, the center tracks their available resources and provides either delivery or contactless pickup.
As with all attempts to both build and fly a plane, Gross and her staff are working to make their efforts sustainable. They are trying to recruit local groups in Brush, for example, who are willing to take on the older adult food delivery as part of their community service. And they are continuing to try and find ways to identify need where they didn’t know it existed before.
“We’ve had so many win-win situations already,” Gross said. “We’re determined to keep that creative spirit going and make more.”
Morgan County Colorado is, quite simply, giving every urban area in Colorado a run for its money when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity. That’s not a statement everyone would expect when the term rural is also used to describe this county that sits in the state’s northeastern corner.
Yet, over the last two decades, the county has become a magnet for many who have immigrated for work or family as well as those who are seeking a more rural, farming-based lifestyle. The census estimates that this place, predominantly white just 20 years ago, boasts more than 40 percent of its roughly 29,000 residents are from communities of color and many different countries and continents.
That reality is the leading reason that Susana Guardado, executive director of One Morgan, knew she couldn’t build the “traditional” food access program to support families during the pandemic and beyond. Instead, she and her team have used a smaller pilot program to build a system that seeks out trusted partners to connect families with the food they want, and when it is unfamiliar, provide recipes that incorporate less culturally-familiar foods in dishes that are well known. This effort is supplemented by a focus on using a small budget to purchase key ingredients – recently stocked were common Somali cooking spices as well as plantains for their South American families -- to ensure everyone has the ability to use and enjoy the food they receive.
“Available isn’t always the same thing as desirable,” said Viridiana Gonzalez Huizar. She provides the recipes as well as food sourcing for all the families served. When she lacks the cultural understanding to purchase staples or adapt recipes, she reaches out to trusted members of the community she is trying to serve. Gonzalez Huizar, a nutritionist, joined the project after being connected by local Colorado State University professor, Eric Ishiwata.
A blended funding and food sourcing effort, which includes support from Food Bank of the Rockies, Cargill and Leprino, as well as local funding and other grant funding including support from the Colorado COVID-19 Emergency Hunger Relief Fund administered by the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger, has allowed One Morgan County to provide food to 30 families at an ultimate cost of about $3.67 per person per week. The program provides recipes, shopping for culturally-appropriate ingredients and staples, packing and delivery to homes weekly.
Guardado’s small team of recipe developers, shoppers, community connectors and drivers are struggling to keep up. But Guardado said all of them are driven both by a desire to help and also the positive impact they can make.
“We have so many families reaching out to tell us what a huge difference this food is making for their families,” she said. “That keeps me going. We just had a family call last week to say that they are going back to work, so they would like to pass their box along to another family they know that could use it.”
This kind of relationship building, Guardado says, is at the heart of the successful program. Many in her community have been traumatized by national conversations around immigration and are fearful of reaching out for information let alone help. It took a network of community members who made the connections in a way that felt safe for the food deliveries to begin to happen.
“I would encourage any organization to make an honest inventory of how accessible you really are for your population,” Guardado said. “And make sure you build a program that lines up with and tries to expand that accessibility. Our ability to tap into existing, trusting relationships made the difference. Our team was able to implement a project genuinely designed for the needs of those directly impacted. I would also say that recipients contributed to creating the project since they shared with us items that are customary to their diets and answered weekly questions that helped us further tailor the project to address their needs and experiences.”