Farm to Community Program expands thanks to COVID-19 Emergency Hunger Relief Fund grant
The Town of Mountain Village is pleased to announce that it has received an $8,000 grant from the COVID-19 Emergency Hunger Relief Fund administered by the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger to expand the Farm to Community Program to serve 11 more families, now 85 total families.
The grant now allows Farm to Community to include all families currently on the program’s waitlist.
“When we decided to start the program two months early this year to help Mountain Village families during the COVID-19 pandemic, we applied for this grant with the hopes of being able to serve more families,” Said Zoe Dohnal, business development and sustainability senior manager. “We are absolutely honored to be receiving this grant and are so grateful for the support.”
The Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger is administering funds for the recently created COVID-19 Emergency Hunger Relief Fund to offer Colorado communities access to food. The fund recognized that the pandemic caused emergency situations for food supplies and aims to provide entities support to help cover the cost of expanded and improving the food supply work to directly serve neighbors who need help.
Farm to Community works with Norwood’s FRESH Food Hub for share supplies. In recent weeks, local producers Tomboy Butcher and Telluride Coffee Roasters both generously donated food products to the shares as well.
“We were delighted to have these two companies reach out with their generous offers,” Dohnal added. “People were thrilled to receive local meat and coffee.”
The Farm to Community Program began in 2017 under the direction of Mountain Village Planning and Development Services Director Michelle Haynes. It was designed to help source local food for residents to help keep local farmers employed and feed community members nutritious food.
This year it was originally scheduled to run June 17 through September 4 during Market on the Plazas but in late March, Town Council dedicated more funding to start the program two months early on April 15.
Pickups are currently near the Village Court Apartment’s main office from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Wednesday. Then beginning June 24, in conjunction with the planned start of Market on the Plaza, pick up will be in Heritage Plaza from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“Food security is central to a community’s long-term survival during events such as this pandemic,” Haynes said. “We are so proud to have a program that could also become so central to assisting our local workforce during a time of unexpected crisis such as sheltering-in-place and job loss.”
Share distribution adheres to physical distancing protocols and staff will use masks and gloves to distribute the shares.
Community members are still invited to apply for the program’s waitlist in case recipients do not pick up their shares on any given week.
To qualify, applicants must live in deed-restricted housing in the Town of Mountain Village with a parent and at least one dependent or meet annual household income qualifications as outlined on the town’s website. To learn more and apply for the waitlist, please visit: townofmountainvillage.com/farm-to-community.
