Food to Power

Thank you for considering supporting Food to Power's work transforming local, state, and federal food, environmental, and healthcare systems to end fresh, nutritious food insecurity in Colorado Springs, CO. We appreciate your generosity and partnership!

Our 2023 Impact

2023 marked Food to Power’s 10-year anniversary working to end food insecurity and inequity in the greater Colorado Springs metro area. Highlights from our decade of service include breaking the Hillside neighborhood’s food apartheid by building and operating a fresh food access point (the Hillside Hub) tailored to their physical, cultural, and nutritional needs in 2022. Across our city-wide programming, we supplied almost 400,000 pounds of fresh food to more than 14,000 people in 2023. In 2024, we’re aiming to increase community fresh food access by 37%.  Below we summarize our 2023 impact by programmatic strand. 

Food Access: We connected more than 14,000 unique Colorado Springs community members with 380,000 lbs of recovered food from partners (i.e., Trader Joes), worth $1.3 million, and 6,300 lbs of produce from the Food To Power Farm, over 136,000 touchpoints. We are now piloting new methods of expanding our reach through the city’s first Community Fridge and partnerships with A Fresh Move Market — a new grocer accepting SNAP and EBT benefits, and Whealthy — a community gym focusing on health, wellness, and nutrition.

Food Education: 14 young food system leaders graduated from our paid F.L.Y. internship and completed community-based projects. In partnership with Colorado College, we piloted a participatory action research project and created a Hillside cookbook based on 50 interviews. Our 17 community-led workshops taught 340 learners how to joyfully grow, prepare, and consume fresh, nutritious food. Topics included mushroom cultivation, Congolese cooking classes, and composting. More than 90% of workshop attendees indicated they learned something new! 

Food Advocacy: In 2023, FTP staff lobbied multiple local representatives for more equitable food access through the Hunger Free Lobby, National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference, and local community organizing. Our advocacy efforts contributed towards blocking the mega-merger of Kroger and Albertsons and our Executive Director  defended the Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program before U.S. Congress. 

Food Production: Based on community input, we planted 73 varieties of culturally- and nutritionally-relevant crops on our urban farm, which were in turn cultivated and harvested by community volunteers. In 2023, 100% of the 6,300 lbs of produce grown on our urban farm were distributed back to our focus communities through an on-site farm stand and No Cost Grocery program. We diverted 63 tons of food scraps from local landfills into compost, the equivalent of preventing 45 tons of CO2 emissions from the local atmosphere. This is the CO2 equivalent of driving 8 gas-powered cars or powering 4 homes for one year.