Grassroots food assistance groups in Boulder are pressing county and state officials to boost support for community-led food distribution, arguing that their hyperlocal approach complements the work of Boulder County’s established food banks and helps reach immigrants, older adults, disabled residents and others who cannot easily access brick-and-mortar pantries.
Earlier this month, as suspended SNAP benefits and rising food insecurity strained families across Boulder County, a coalition of local groups issued a public call for more funding.
Although SNAP benefits resumed in mid-November, organizations say the need has not passed. Thousands of county residents are expected to lose SNAP benefits under the Big Beautiful Bill, and advocates fear the administration could pursue deeper, permanent cuts.
“It’s not a call [not to] fund food banks and pantries; they are emergency food relief,” said Hayden Dansky, co-founder and co-director of Boulder Food Rescue. “But the trend is, in times of crisis, the people who are organizing on the ground get overlooked.”
Dansky said government and philanthropic funding continues to flow overwhelmingly to large food banks, leaving out other community-based programs many residents rely on. “Not everybody accesses those institutions, so we’re leaving so many people, especially our most marginalized people, behind.”
The groups are requesting $175,000 in immediate relief in a letter, prioritizing support for community-run “no cost grocery programs,” vouchers for local tiendas that depend on SNAP revenue and funding for mutual aid networks that formed during the SNAP suspension.
‘No-cost grocery’ models
Boulder Food Rescue operates 50 no-cost grocery programs across the city. The model relies on community representatives who distribute rescued food directly to neighbors. Some sites set up community room “shops,” while others offer door-to-door distribution.
“At some sites, especially older adult sites, people hang out, they eat food together, they’re cooking, it’s this whole community event,” Dansky said. At sites with more working families, people grab food quickly between obligations.
What ties the programs together, Dansky said, is that “it’s designed by the people who live there so it can actually meet those folks’ needs.”
Longmont Food Rescue operates similarly, and both organizations say additional funds would allow them to open more drop sites around the county.
Their model, they say, reaches people who struggle to access food banks, especially immigrants who are staying home out of fear, as well as workers, older adults and those without transportation.
“Someone’s going to be asking a question: ‘Is it worth going and potentially being kidnapped off the street, and thrown into a cage and then deported to a country that I’m not even from?’” Dansky said. “The risk is so high.”
Tiendas under strain
Community fear of ICE has also hit local cultural grocery stores.
“We have been talking with our community and customers, and everyone is really afraid of what’s happening with immigration,” one local tienda owner told the Food Security Network, the group later told Boulder Reporting Lab. “We really don’t know if they are after bad people, or anyone. So in the meantime, people feel targeted and have fear to leave their homes.” Combined with rising costs and the SNAP suspension, they’ve reported a 40% decline in sales.
Community Food Share, in collaboration with Feeding Colorado, the Food Security Network and Boulder Food Rescue, has begun distributing $25 vouchers redeemable at locally owned tiendas. Working through groups like Boulder Food Rescue, shoppers are receiving what are essentially $25 gift cards to tiendas. Nine stores have received $5,000 each through the program.
Where funding flows, and where it doesn’t
On Oct. 30, the state legislature approved Gov. Jared Polis’request for $10 million in emergency funding for food banks. None of that money went to Boulder Food Rescue or similar organizations, which are outside the Feeding America Network that received the allocation. Dansky said Boulder Food Rescue isn’t a member of the network in part because it doesn’t want unfamiliar outside auditors entering communities it is trying to build trust with.
Philanthropic dollars also tend to flow to larger organizations. Advocates say they support that giving but want more community-run programs included in conversations about funding and long-term planning.
Longer term, advocates say Boulder needs a “food emergency plan,” to prepare for the next disruption, whether caused by suspended benefits, a climate event or supply chain breakdown.
“It’s not just SNAP being cut,” said Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish, founder of two of the letter’s signees FLOWS and Once and Future Green. “What if there’s a drought, what if there’s a transportation issue, what if there’s a freeze? We’re so reliant on a pretty fragile food system overall.”
Clarification, November 26, 2025 1:59 pm: After publication, we adjusted a few phrases to avoid inadvertently implying that Boulder County food banks are not community-based organizations. They are. We also replaced the term “institutions” in one instance, referring to recipients of philanthropic grants, with “organizations” for the same reason. These changes did not alter the meaning of the story.
I am a big fan of Boulder Food Rescue and think they do great work; however, I feel I need to respond to a few things in the article. I cannot speak for other “institutions” but Sister Carmen Community Center is a community- based family resource center with strong roots that go back 50 years in Eastern Boulder County. We have a participant advisory committee (made up of a diverse group of people who participate in or receive our services) that gives us feedback and suggestions on our services and programming. This committee has been an active and integral part of our program delivery model for about 14 years. (We also conduct surveys to allow all participants to have an opportunity to inform our services and programming.)
Our food bank serves over 3200 families in Lafayette, Louisville, Superior, and Erie each year, distributing over 1.3 million pounds of annually. We have food deliveries for folks who are home bound, unable, or do not wish to come to our location to shop. They can call and let us know their choices and we deliver to their doorstep. We also have 18 bilingual staff (most are also bi-cultural). Most speak Spanish but we also have staff who speak Arabic, Farsi, and Thai. Many grew up in the communities we serve. The idea that we are out of touch with the needs of the community is untrue.
Also, out of curiosity, I would like to know what no-cost means. Boulder Food Rescue, like SCCC, does have paid staff and operating costs so it confuses me that the article claims they are a no cost program. I love that they rely on volunteers who live in the communities to distribute food. We, too (like other similar organizations) rely on volunteers. We have over 150 volunteers who work in our food bank. We truly couldn’t do it without them.
I support what Boulder Food Rescue does because it takes all of us to get food into the hands of people who need it when there is so much food insecurity in our community. I also think that Hayden is an incredible leader. I absolutely believe that Boulder (and Longmont) Food Rescue organizations are worthy of funding and should be included in planning conversations. One of the strengths of the Boulder County community is the safety net we have. The level of collaboration and support that we have here is not found in most communities and it allows us to work together to support people who need our services. I just don’t think it serves anyone to make generalizations or to subtly disparage other organizations.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Crawford
CEO
Sister Carmen Community Center
Hi Suzanne,
Thank you for your comment. BFR and the other organizations we spoke with made it clear they believe community food banks do great work, and that the barriers they see are simply the result of having a brick-and-mortar location. They emphasized that food banks are vital and doing good in the community, and I tried to reflect that in the story.
Thanks Brooke. SCCC is a family resource center. One of our programs is a large, self-shop, food pantry. We actually do deliveries to folks who are homebound or do not wish to come to our “brick and mortar” location. We also offer offer the option of designating a proxy shopper, if people prefer that. It’s disappointing that the assumption seems to be that agencies like ours are not flexible and responsive, when in fact we are very nimble and responsive to community needs.
Thanks Suzanne for all of your work and everything Sister Carmen has done for our community for so many years. We value and appreciate your work and did not write our letter (or speak with Boulder Reporting Lab) to undercut you, but to bring attention to the acute crisis we find ourselves in. It was, as you mentioned, a call for grassroots groups to receive more funding support and to be brought in meaningfully to planning processes in these times of manufactured crises.
Our letter was intended to call for transformational approaches to food justice and resilience in our community, creating more space for grassroots and community-led projects and approaches (including but not limited to Boulder Food Rescue). Together with the existing food emergency services you and others provide we hope to address multiple problems in our food systems whose pain points are especially harsh on communities.
No one approach or group can solve all of the inter-related issues with food insecurity and injustice. Multiple approaches are needed simply to equitably bring community voices to the table, let alone meet our aim to go beyond food access to food justice. Simultaneously, we need to address the environmental crisis, waste, agriculture systems and their related inputs, energy and water use, labor inequities, land access, resilience, and community leadership.
Our call is largely on the philanthropic community to support a multifaceted, short- and long-term approach and support grassroots justice-oriented efforts. Grassroots food justice and mutual aid organizations will continue to be an important part of the food justice puzzle, which will be even more challenging with our federal administration’s purposeful cuts on safety nets. We must look soberly, acknowledge, and plan for their attacks on People of Color, immigrant, and working class communities… or anyone perceived to be a part of one.
In aligned commitment to a more resilient, equitable, and delicious world,
Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish,
Once and Future Green & FLOWS