In response to the growing number of people visiting Denver area food pantries and to increase access to healthy and fresh produce for all, area organizations have come together to create Produce for Pantries.
A project of Cooking Matters, Grow Local Colorado, Denver Urban Gardens, Slow Food Denver, Plant a Row for the Hungry, Livewell Colorado, Food Bank of the Rockies, Metro CareRing, Yardharvest and Saint John’s Cathedral, Produce for Pantries connects food pantries with school gardens, community gardens and home gardens in their neighborhoods.
With a total of 23 Denver-area pantries involved as pilot sites for 2012, the project aims to provide locally-grown and healthy food and nutrition education, including easy, healthful bilingual recipes to accompany the produce; information on safe food handling and storage for the fresh produce; and on-site cooking classes. Through Yardharvest, food pantries will also be connected with fruit gleaned from residents’ trees, if they have an excess harvest they would like to donate.
“In the world’s wealthiest nation no child should go hungry, but one in five children in America struggles with hunger,” says Cooking Matters’ Megan Bradley. “And Produce for Pantries recognizes that one of the main hurdles to healthy eating can be access to local nutritious foods. You can’t get more local than food grown in the neighborhood of food pantries.”
Produce for Pantries “connects the dots” by bringing together youth growing produce in school gardens, residents growing food in community gardens and those growing vegetables in home gardens to help nourish their neighbors in need, thereby strengthening and enriching Denver’s diverse neighborhoods. Residents are encouraged to contact Produce for Pantries at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to connect with their nearest participating food pantry, and to register their fruit trees online at yardharvest.org to arrange for donation of excess fruit to nearby food pantries.