When Melina Valsecia was named executive director of the five-year-old Eagle Valley Community Foundation in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was just becoming a harsh reality for Americans. The pandemic forced the shutdown of normally blustering ski operations and restaurants in Vail, and people were left high and dry.

Fortunately, Susie Davis, the first-ever employee of the Eagle Valley Community Foundation (EVCF), seized upon an opportunity that helped both the closed restaurants and food-insecure residents throughout the mountain community.

The Community Market, a small local food bank under the EVCF umbrella, purchased the restaurants’ food at 20 cents on the dollar right off the trucks stopped in their tracks from making their previously routine deliveries.

The Market continued to receive surplus food from nearby grocery stores and Western Slope farms, but also negotiated a new deal with local farmers to encourage them to continue planting new crops by prepaying for their output.

Just that one tiny food bank, which fed 1,050 people in February 2020, was feeding 3,160 people by April, just after the state-imposed shelter-in-place order was issued. The Market had to allow only one shopper at a time under pandemic rules, so customers were allowed to fill out a form while sitting in their cars while packers loaded up boxes of groceries they had asked for.

Mike Rushmore founded the Eagle Valley Community Foundation in partnership with Seth Ehrlich and Jason Denhart with the goal of amplifying the voices of those most impacted by longstanding disparities.

The foundation created an “unusual” financial structure involving a total of 40 founding families and 70 small businesses that also provided assistance; during the pandemic, a farming implement store donated masks for the volunteers who received the food, took orders, and packed boxes.

But that was not enough to address the rapidly expanding need.

And so among the various grants that helped the young charity stay afloat was a $150,000 emergency grant from the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund. The McGowan Fund then provided another $150,000 to the Food Bank of the Rockies, which had become a partner with the EVCF in feeding hungry Coloradans.

Valsecia took advantage of the pandemic-forced level of support from the bilingual staff and customer volunteers to flesh out her vision to build an inclusive community where Hispanic people in Eagle County were empowered as leaders and where economic opportunity, innovation, and the ability to thrive reaches to all members of the community. Davis, too, was amazed at the way her neighbors responded to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Food Bank of the Rockies, which works with nearly 150 hunger relief partners to distribute food in 13 Western Colorado counties, also saw unprecedented growth in the wake of the pandemic. In 2021, the organization distributed 12.5 million pounds of food — by far the most in its 23 years of serving the Western Slope.

That increased need led to the construction of the Western Slope Etkin Family Distribution Center in Grand Junction, which enabled Food Bank of the Rockies to provide 62% more meals a year than in previous years.

It also houses the SCL Health St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center Meals on Wheels program that provides free meals to the elderly in the Grand Valley. According to Meals on Wheels manager Amanda DeBock, this was a godsend because demand for these meals increased from 120,000 in 2019 to 190,000 meals delivered in 2021.

To pay for the new facility, Food Bank of the Rockies embarked on a campaign to raise $10.8 million from Colorado donors — plus the emergency help from the McGowan Fund. In addition, the Bellco Credit Union contributed $100,000 toward a volunteer center and more opportunities for individuals and groups to join in efforts to feed the hungry.

Food insecurity in rural Colorado has long been a target of charities. Founded in 1972, the Care and Share Food Bank, the lone food bank covering 47,000 square miles in southern Colorado, provided 21 million meals and 25 million pounds of food to hungry people in half the state.

That effort required a collaboration with 6,0000 volunteers and 289 food pantries and other partner agencies.

Care and Share CEO Nate Springer says there is some real sadness that it takes so much food to support only half the state of Colorado but is encouraged that 80% of the food that leaves his facility is healthy and nutritious by USDA standards, thanks in part to an increased focus on fresh produce in the mix of food doled out to the needy.

Let’s be clear, in the wake of the pandemic, one in nine Coloradans, and one in seven children in the state, are experiencing food insecurity.

But in recognition of the ongoing need for food assistance, and because of the excellent resource management exhibited by their Colorado partners, the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund has just announced it will donate another $125,000 each to the Food Bank of the Rockies and the Eagle Valley Community Foundation.

It is in the hands of the willing and capable to provide lasting change for these Coloradans.

Duggan Flanakin is a policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which is based in Washington, D.C., and was founded to promote a much-needed, positive alternative voice on issues of environment and development.