COLORADO SPRINGS — The nonprofit Food to Power, formerly known as Colorado Springs Food Rescue, is celebrating its 10th anniversary helping people get equitable access to nutrition in Colorado Springs.
"This wasn't even a concept 10 years ago," said Executive Director for Food to Power Patience Kabwasa.
The nonprofit started out as a student project on Colorado College's campus, working to give food scraps and leftover food waste from restaurants to the people who need it. Now, Food to Power serves hundreds of thousands of people
in our area every year.
"There's a reason our name is Food to Power, we use food as a vehicle to helping people build power," said Director of Communications Jessi Bustamante.
Food to Power now serves people with their 3.7-acre Hillside Hub Campus, featuring several gardening beds, greenhouses, and kitchens. They now grow fruits and vegetables for the community, turn food waste into compost, hold a no-cost grocery distribution, and classes on how people can grow, harvest, and cook their own food.
"As we began to understand the depth of health equity and how intersectional that is to housing, and income, and education," said Kabwasa. "We started to think about how we can affect health equity long term".
They've seen increasing need over the last 3 years with the COVID-19 Pandemic, rising costs of living in the area, supply chain issues, and sometimes a lack of healthy food options in the Southeast side of town.
"This summer we had King Soupers close in the Southeast, and that put a lot more demand on local food pantries," said Bustamante when speaking to how Food to Power helped community members.
The nonprofit is ecstatic about its 10th anniversary, hosting a celebration on Monday, October 23 at 6:30 pm.
The nonprofit is exploring its strategic options for the next 10 years, possibly looking at expanding into other parts of Colorado. They also say in the very far future, they hope to be so successful that their services aren't even needed.
"Very long term, we're hoping we won't be needed someday in the future, because our goal is to cultivate a healthier food system, not to continue to have a system where these services are completely necessary," said Bustamante.
___
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
