Emergency bags will be paused to improve reliability and access to our Fresh Foods Market
Metro Caring will be focusing greater attention on the root causes of increased food insecurity
At Metro Caring, our mission is to meet people’s needs for nutritious, culturally relevant foods while building a movement to end hunger at its root.
After careful consideration, we will pause emergency bag distribution at the end of February to increase access to our Fresh Foods Market. We will also evaluate our direct food access programs and focus added attention on addressing the root causes of the rise in food insecurity. The final day to pick up emergency bags will be Thursday, February 29, 2024, between 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 to 3:00 p.m.
Emergency bags were originally introduced in 2019 as a short-term stopgap to meet immediate needs for community members who visited Metro Caring without an appointment for the Fresh Foods Market, a grocery-store-style market that invites people to choose what foods they want to take home.
Since the reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in March 2023, demand for emergency food has increased drastically. More individuals relied on our services this January than ever before, including during the height of COVID-19.
Since August 2023, more people received an emergency bag from Metro Caring than an appointment in our Fresh Foods Market. Our volunteers and Community Connectors have worked hard to meet this increased demand. However, we have found that we do not have the capacity to properly meet this demand in a way that aligns with our core value of “pursue equity.”
“Metro Caring has been very clear that simply handing out a bag of random food items is not a dignified or equitable way of achieving food sovereignty and addressing the root cause of food insecurity,” Director of Programs and Impact Tash Mitchell shared. “It is both outside of our organizational intention and our capacity to primarily focus on emergency bags distribution. We all want to keep providing access to fresh foods for as many people as possible, and we need to work alongside our community to shift our strategy to meet the moment in an equitable and innovative way.”
Our immediate focus is increasing access to our Fresh Foods Market by reducing the wait time between shopping trips from 6 weeks to every month and by filling no-show and canceled appointments so that this service is operating at full capacity.
With hundreds of supporters, community partners, and volunteers who show up each week to Metro Caring, we know we can generate more creative, equitable solutions to address the root causes of hunger.
Food access that builds toward food sovereignty
Our Fresh Foods Market is unique in that it invites community members to choose what foods they want to take home. This is important in meeting diverse needs, including various family sizes, food preferences, and dietary considerations.
Our Food Access team is prioritizing stocking our shelves with fresh, healthy groceries in high demand—like eggs, meat, and dairy—so that community members can expect a reliable selection of groceries each time they shop.
When emergency bags were first introduced, they were prepared in the moment to serve walk-in community members. In 2019, volunteers had the capacity and time to accommodate diet and preferences in line with our values. With demand tripling during the pandemic and increasing again by 135% in the past year, we had to switch to the bags being pre-prepared. This removed the ability for community members to choose what foods they receive, which is at the core of how we hope to do our work.
Since then, community members have shared that the bags no longer have enough food to last someone a few days, let alone enough for a family.
One community member stated, “My brother and I only got one bag of food to share that lasted one day.”
Another person shared, “I’m trying to live a more plant-based diet. I [used to] come in and just mostly try to get some fresh vegetables so I can cook more vegan dishes, but I have to settle on only a small [bag] now, which is not optimal for my plant-based meal program that my doctor recommends.”
This recent feedback from the community has shown us that emergency bags are no longer an effective method to meet people’s needs for nutritious, culturally relevant foods. Therefore, we decided to redirect those resources to try to expand access for more community members to shop at our Fresh Foods Market.
“It’s important to us that we value our community members’ time by being honest about what they can expect,” Mitchell said. “So many people are juggling multiple jobs just to make ends meet. We can’t, in good faith, ask folks to wait in a line for half an hour to simply offer a bag of food that won’t serve their needs. We want to give more people the opportunity to shop in our Fresh Foods Market, so they can choose what they know is best for them.”
The rise in food insecurity started a year ago
Hunger spiked in Metro Caring’s community in March 2023 when Congress ended SNAP Emergency Allotments. Many families struggled to make ends meet after Congress refused to make these two public benefits permanent. They were left with less income and SNAP benefits halved. March 2023 was the first month since the COVID-19 outbreak that more than 10,000 people relied on our food access services. Meanwhile, Colorado is currently one of the slowest states to process SNAP benefits.
Congress has refused to provide humane relief to newcomers as Denver. Local nonprofits struggle to cope with more South and Central American refugees than any other city in the nation. Many of these families are applying for asylum status to become eligible for work permits and SNAP benefits but are stuck waiting at least 150 days—all while Texas Governor Greg Abbott keeps forcibly busing more desperate families to Denver.
Metro Caring does not require any documentation or proof of need to access our services. We believe that everyone—Black, brown, or white, newcomer or Colorado-born, homeowner or tent dweller—deserves healthy food.
“The crisis is the direct result of systematic and prolonged failure of our federal and state government to safeguard food as a human right for long-term residents and newcomers alike,” CEO-Visionary Teva Sienicki said.
Congress’s lack of action to reduce barriers to government assistance programs and pass sensible immigration reform and support for sanctuary cities like Denver leaves community-based organizations like Metro Caring strapped while tens of thousands in our city lack access to basic human needs.
Metro Caring’s Food Access team is exploring partnerships with mutual aid groups and nonprofits that focus on supporting new immigrants to maximize our efforts. We are committed to working with the City of Denver to ensure our city remains a welcoming place for all.
Getting to the root
Hunger is the direct result of conscious policy choices, lack of congressional action, and government divestments in affordable housing, healthcare, and SNAP over the past 43 years.
Traditional food pantries are inherently a separate and unequal system of food access. Reliance on donations results in unpredictable inventory, random selection, limited hours, wait lists to shop, and, all too frequently, bare spots on the shelves. Even though we now spend more than 20 times as much on food as we were spending just 6 years ago, we can’t adequately meet more and more people’s everyday needs for food.
Our mission is focused on ending hunger at these root causes so that nobody needs to rely on food pantries.
Currently, we are partnering with organizations and members of our community to support policies at the Colorado State Capitol that will improve public benefits, health, food access, housing, and wages.
Amid growing food insecurity, our community reminds us that we do have the power to see the end of hunger in our lifetime. Thousands of volunteers and supporters from all ages, genders, races, and income levels come together every day at Metro Caring to make a difference. As we mobilize more of our community to the root causes of hunger, we become a force to be reckoned with.
This post was updated on 2/26/2024.
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Additional Emergency Food Resources
Hunger Free Colorado. One-stop-shop for food resources across Colorado.
FindHelp.org. Find free or reduced-cost resources like food, housing, financial assistance, health care, and more.
Mobile Markets. A monthly opportunity where everyone can come to shop for food at no cost.