We are in this for the long run, but right now we are taking a moment to honor the incredible achievements we accomplished this year in the state legislature – and the fact that we did this TOGETHER!

There were many important issues up for consideration this session, but we focused our attention on three key priorities aimed at addressing food insecurity:

1. 1. Food Pantry Grant Assistance Program: We are thrilled to share that just this week, House Bill 1364 passed, so this important program will be funded next year at $3 million. We had asked for an extension of five years to allow for more long-term stability for this critical initiative. This does mean we will need to come back next year, but it also means that emergency food providers and farmers can continue to build partnerships to purchase and provide meat, dairy and fresh produce to people in our communities.
   2. SNAP Outreach: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides nutrition benefits to low-income households and serves as the first line of defense against hunger for many families facing financial crisis. According to the USDA Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), about 40% of low-income Coloradans do not access the program. SNAP Outreach helps to close this gap, and to ensure more Coloradans in need receive the benefits they are entitled to. We sought an increase of $500,000 to maintain current funding levels, since the program has experienced a recent loss of private dollars. We were not able to get the additional funding this year. Temporary measures will ensure SNAP Outreach continues to be funded at near the current  level for FFY 2022-23, but cuts will occur in FFY 2023-24 without additional funds. We will need to go back next year to ensure this does not happen. For now, we are glad that this important outreach will continue, so Coloradans will continue to be able to utilize SNAP to meet the needs of their families.
   3. Healthy School Meals for All: THIS IS THE BIG NEWS WE ARE SO EXCITED TO SHARE! Children need nutritious food to focus in school, stay healthy and support their well-being. Currently, all schools are temporarily able to provide school meals to any child who needs them as part of COVID-19 federal aid, but it is expiring on June 30th. Hunger Free Colorado and our partners set the lofty goal of moving legislation to find a more stable and long-term source of funding – and we did it! House Bill 1414 passed earlier this week.

This means that voters will now have the opportunity to approve a ballot question in the fall to secure stable, long-term funding for healthy school meals, support the ability of schools to purchase healthy and local foods, and increase wages for the workers who prepare and serve meals. The funding for this critical program will be provided by limiting state income tax deductions for the state’s highest earners, people making more than $300,000 a year.

This program would begin to fund meals in the 2023-2024 school year, so we also sought approval of one-time funding for next year.  This was not approved, but we will continue to find other avenues in collaboration with our partners to continue to get kids what they need to be healthy, to learn and to thrive. We should not allow any child to go hungry while they are trying to learn. We must come together to get this ballot measure passed and make this program permanent in our state! 

We are grateful to everyone who shared their story and provided testimony, to the advocates and partners who helped to educate and build support, to anyone who made calls or sent emails, and of course to the lawmakers who championed and voted for our priority policies.

We are excited to ramp up to pass Healthy School Meals for All through the ballot in November and to continue to work with our partners, with lawmakers and with YOU to find innovative and strategic ways to end hunger. Together, we are making a difference – and we will continue to do so! Thank you for being in this with us!

During the 2022 Legislative Session, Hunger Free Colorado will advocate for policies that strengthen an equitable food system and ensure all Coloradans can access the nutrition they need in their communities. While we will be supporting our partners as they work on legislation to address Coloradans’ basic needs and well-being through cash assistance, housing reform, and more, our main focus this session will be on three key anti-hunger policies:

1. Create a Path to Healthy School Meals for All Colorado Children

Children need nutritious food to focus in school, stay healthy and support their well-being. Currently, all schools are temporarily able to provide school meals to any child who needs them as part of COVID-19 federal aid. Colorado should make this temporary option permanent and help thousands of children access the food they need learn, grow and thrive every day at school. Investing in healthy school meals for all is an investment in strengthening communities, reducing administrative costs, eliminating lunch debt, removing shame and stigma from the lunchroom, freeing up resources for schools and staff and supporting student well-being. Want to join us to pass and fund a community-informed policy to create school meals for all children in Colorado public schools? Sign up to join our coalition!

2. Extend the Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program for five years

The Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program has provided a lifeline to food pantries, food banks, and Colorado producers throughout the pandemic. The grants go to direct emergency food providers like food pantries and food banks to allow them to purchase products from local producers. Furthermore, up to 20 percent of the grants can be used by pantries to invest in other needs including fridges and transportation. These funds help pantries provide foods that their communities most want and need but that can be hard for these operations to supply, like fresh produce, dairy, and proteins. Hunger Free Colorado is working with a coalition of food pantries, food banks, growers, and food systems navigators to extend and strengthen this program for another five years. The proposed legislation this session will extend the program for five years using federal and state funds and support local procurement through technical assistance and better aligning grant cycles with the growing season. This will help Colorado community-based organizations to continue their response to the historic hunger crisis caused by COVID-19, while also fostering relationships between food pantries and local agriculture for years to come, fueling health for Colorado families relying on pantries for nutrition, and supporting a more equitable food system. Join the Food Pantry Assistance Grant Legislation coalition and sign onto the bill fact sheet by filling out this form!

3. Sustainably Fund the SNAP Outreach Program in the state budget

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides grocery EBT benefits to low-income households and serves as the first line of defense against hunger for many families facing financial crisis. Colorado’s SNAP Outreach Program works with more than 50 community-based organizations to connect eligible households to food assistance, provide education and information on SNAP, and assist with enrollment. This is crucial, as about 40 percent of low-income Coloradans do not access the program due to barriers to enrollment that outreach can help mitigate. SNAP outreach also makes good financial sense. What the state invests in SNAP outreach services is matched dollar for dollar by the federal government. SNAP outreach also fuels economic recovery as families connected to SNAP receive federal money for food that they quickly spend in their local communities. By our estimates, in Federal Fiscal Year 2020 every state dollar invested in SNAP outreach brought $14 to Colorado families in the form of federal food benefits to help purchase groceries, with an economic stimulus impact of $21! We must fund SNAP outreach in the state budget at $1.5 million to continue the important support the program provides as COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact low-income families and communities of color. This increase of $500,000 will maintain current funding levels since the program has experienced a recent loss of private dollars. Complete this form to add your organization as a supporter of the SNAP Outreach funding request!

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You can help us pass these crucial policies! Sign up for our email advocacy list for legislative updates and to learn when there are opportunities to weigh in on these and other policies that impact Coloradans facing hunger.

COMMUNITY

Through our COVID-19 virtual town hall, live webinars and numerous Q&A sessions, (offered in English and Spanish) we answered critical questions from community members and provided guidance in navigating benefit programs in a COVID-19 world.  

In March, we launched the COVID-19 Food Resource Page to provide Coloradans with information on programs and community resources they can utilize during the crisis. This free resource site gives Coloradans expedited access to information, services and programs all over the state. And we hired three additional staff members in response to the growing number of calls to the Food Resource Hotline (which reached a peak of three times our average call volume). 

In April, we launched our #MyFoodStory campaign to help inform and drive our hunger-solving work forward. This campaign encourages community members to share how COVID-19 has impacted their access to food. By sharing stories, we can raise awareness about hunger in our state and shed light on the real people and families that are affected by food insecurity every day. 

POLICY

Hunger Free Colorado worked closely with community members, nonprofit organizations and state agencies to pass common-sense policy and adapt essential food programs to assist our most underserved and vulnerable populations.  

Important policy wins:  

• Online ordering and delivery for SNAP recipients, giving them the ability to access food from the safety of their homes  
• Additional pick up locations for summer meals  
• Eliminating the need for young children to go out during the crisis by allowing parents to pick up their kids’ meals 
• Expanding WIC program flexibility that allowed participants to purchase additional types of bread, milk and cheese  
• The Colorado Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program 

We are so grateful to our food pantry, food bank and Colorado producer partners that made the passage of the Colorado Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program possible! This grant program allocates federal CARES Act dollars to food pantries and food banks so they can purchase fresh, local food and support Colorado’s producers.  

GOING FORWARD

To many, the pandemic has revealed a broken system, one where our neighbors are left to struggle in poverty with dwindling opportunities for assistance. We can change this but we need to make big changes to our current system. SNAP, our nation’s largest anti-hunger program is being benched during a global pandemic. We must work as a community to remove barriers to food access so our fellow Coloradans can afford to feed their families without sacrificing other necessities like paying utility bills or rent. To learn more and help, visit our action center and join our action network through email or on Facebook.  

No matter what comes our way, Hunger Free Colorado is here to support all Coloradans who struggle with hunger.  

Increase SNAP Outreach Funding (with a Focus on the Enrollment of Eligible Students)

All increases in funding from State-supported outreach and the private sector will receive a 100% federal match for the enrollment of eligible, school-age community members and their families struggling with hunger.

Only 6 out of 10 eligible Coloradans utilize SNAP. This gap represents a huge loss of federal dollars in benefits (in the hundreds of millions) that could support our local communities, especially in rural Colorado.

One of the Governor’s Wildly Important Goals for this upcoming state fiscal year is to utilize SNAP outreach partners to increase the enrollment of eligible Coloradans in SNAP with a particular focus on Colorado’s students, which aligns with the Governor’s proposed Roadmap to Make College More Affordable.

Support Colorado’s Emergency Food Providers and Local Producers

Colorado’s low-income families, agricultural sector and local food systems will all benefit from increased funding, on an annual basis, for the Food Pantry Assistance Grant. This legislation will ensure more Colorado families have access to the nutritious food needed to reach their full potential and provide a critical revenue source for our local farmers, ranchers and producers.

The Colorado Food Pantry Assistance Grant provides funds for food pantries and food banks to purchase high quality produce, meat and dairy from Colorado Proud farmers and ranchers. The first year of the program (2018) was a great success, with $500,000 in grants awarded to 94 food pantries and food banks across the state. The allocated funding, however, did not come close to fulfilling the nearly $3 million in funding applications. And despite the documented need, the state only allocated $100,000 in 2019.

Expand Additional Healthy Food Incentive Programs

Our state needs to stand behind proven programs like Double Up Food Bucks and the Produce Box Program that are a win-win for hungry Colorado families and rural producers throughout the state. These health incentive programs are proven to support positive health and food security outcomes because they allow consumers to purchase more healthy foods.

Double Up Food Bucks can quintuple the number of SNAP participants shopping at farmers markets by providing a dollar-to-dollar match (up to $20) for using these funds to purchase healthy foods at the market.

The Produce Box Program purchases community supported agriculture shares (CSAs) from farmers to provide food for families with low incomes. In 2019, this program purchased over 500 farm shares from Colorado producers.

Want to help make these policies a reality? Join us on Hunger Action Day (3/4/2020) and join our action network to get updates!

As a state we took some promising hunger-solving steps during Colorado’s 2019 legislative session. Our Policy Department has worked tirelessly to introduce and support policies that secure food resources and access for our fellow Coloradans. And we’re immensely thankful to everyone who attended our Day at the Capitol and signed our petition at the Hike to End Hunger!

Below is a snapshot of our recent policy work. To read the full report, visit HungerFreeColorado.org/policy-and-advocacy/.

Colorado Food Pantry Assistance Grant (2018 & 2019)

Hunger Free Colorado worked closely with the Joint Budget Committee to establish the Colorado Food Pantry Assistance Grant.

• Supports food pantries and food banks in purchasing critical meat, dairy and fresh produce from local Colorado farmers and ranchers.
• $500,000 was appropriated in 2018 and an additional $100,000 to fund the program in 2019
• Enables food pantries and producers to collaborate in providing fresh healthy food for Coloradans in need.

Rule Change Bolsters Food Assistance for Older Coloradans and People with Disabilities (2019)

This rule change, implemented March 15, 2019, has the potential to increase food stamp benefits for people with disabilities and older adults. It was developed by Hunger Free Colorado and the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

• Households that include a person with a disability or an older adult can deduct their medical expenses in excess of $35 from their income when applying for food stamps (SNAP) raising their monthly benefit amount.
• Increased the medical mileage reimbursement rate from the IRS medical to the IRS business rate, allowing more Coloradans to deduct their medical expenses and ensuring that benefit amounts account for the true cost of medical care for older adults and Coloradans with disabilities.

Expand Child Nutrition School Lunch Protection Act (2019)

Also known as HB19-1171, this act expands access to affordable school lunches to high school students by covering the copay for students who qualify for reduced-price lunches. This bill ensures that Colorado’s students have the fuel needed to succeed in school and helps to prevent money-based shaming in school cafeterias.

Hunger is solvable but we can’t do it without YOUR support.

If you’re interested in ending hunger, sign up for our emails. (We won’t spam you, we promise!) You’ll receive:

• Updates about policy wins we started or supported
• Action alerts for policy that is attempting to weaken critical food resource programs

Hunger Free Colorado works from the federal to the local level to streamline processes and adopt policies and best practices that help alleviate hunger throughout the state. To support our policy work through a monthly donation, join the Full Plate Society!