Sustainable Food Access
Providing essential food resources, creating jobs, and ensuring sustainable, healthy meals for our neighbors in Montbello. Montbello Sustainable Food Access Coalition is a network of nonprofits and school gardens invested in providing healthy, accessible, and culturally responsive meals to families that need support. In recent years, this collaboration has provided food resources to over 250,000 children, youth, and adults.
Community
Gardens
Nine community gardens operate in Montbello. Each garden is planted, maintained and harvested by a strong network of volunteers, families and supporters under the direction of a small paid staff. In addition to fostering a sense of community, providing a pleasurable location to enjoy nature and offering hands-on gardening education, the gardens produce 20,000 pounds of produce that is distributed through the food pantries.
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Through a collaboration between Children’s Farms of America and Montbello Organizing Committee, hundreds of seeds are planted early each spring. Once the seeds have sprouted, boxes of vegetable, herb and flowers seedlings are distributed to 250+ families to plant home gardens.
Education
Programs
Seven school partners in the Montbello area maintain school gardens. Through educational programming, students learn about science, nutrition, math and literacy in the gardens. Students also help to plant, maintain, harvest and frequently prepare food from produce grown in the gardens.
Food
Pantries
Montbello is home to two food pantries that have been in existence for several years. Each year, these food pantries hand out 1+ million pounds of food to neighbors experiencing food insecurity. The only requirement to receive food from one of these two food pantries is a completed registration form through Food Bank of the Rockies.
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Sacks of Love distributes food boxes Monday-Friday
at its outdoor food pantry located at 12000 E. 47th Avenue. Boxes contain non-perishable items as well as fresh produce, meat and bread. Food is distributed beginning at noon and continues until supplies are depleted.
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Montbello Mobile Food Pantry distributes food boxes the first and third Thursday of each month. The pantry operates out of the parking lot at Montbello Recreation Center (15555 E. 53rd Ave., Denver, CO 80239) and is open from 9 am to noon.
Community
Support
A huge thanks to our partners!
Contact Montbello Sustainable Food Access Coalition
For more information, contact the Montbello Sustainable Food Access team.
Feel free to click the buttons below to connect with our coalition contacts and discover how you can get involved.
POLICY COUNCIL
Interested in helping to build sustainable food access in Montbello? Reach out to Nicole Millan, Director of Community Partnerships, at nicole.millan@montbelloorganizing.org to get involved in our policy council and programs.