More food goes to waste in America than in any other country.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that at any given time, up to 40% of the U.S. food supply is en route to, or at, its final destination — not a dinner table, but the dump, where it takes up more space in landfills than any other type of waste.
Any food that is unconsumed is wasted food — the half-eaten burger, the apple left to rot on a tree or in a fruit bowl. But much of what ends up getting tossed not only is still perfectly safe for human consumption, it’s as intact and tasty as ever: frozen pizzas and family-sized pot pies that weren’t snapped up by their conservative “sell by” dates, Corn Flakes that didn’t make the cut at Kellogg's quality control, fried chicken without enough breading.
Monica Wiedrick, sorting and packing coordinator, operates a fork lift at Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021. Care and Share distributed 22 million pounds of food last year. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
Not counting viable food remaindered by consumers, up to 52 billion pounds of products and produce from grocery stores, restaurants and other food producers gets thrown out annually, according to Feeding America, the nonprofit that helps identify and redirect what they can to a nationwide network of food banks.
One of them, the Colorado Springs-based Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, has been rescuing such food locally and getting it to struggling individuals and families for almost 50 years. It was a complex mission that called for dexterous and creative thinking even before the pandemic, said the nonprofit’s CEO, Lynn Telford.
“At Care and Share we’ve been through disasters before — Waldo Canyon, Black Forest Fire, the government shut-down,” she said. “I think that did help prepare us in some ways. But this one has gone on a lot longer. We had to worry about the safety of our own people in addition to getting more food out, and dealing with people who have never had to ask for food before. We’ve really changed a lot of the ways we do business.”
Shannon Coker, chief operating officer of Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, points to food items at the warehouse in Colorado Springs on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021. Care and Share distributed 22 million pounds of food last year. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
Founded in 1972 by Pueblo native and Franciscan Sister Dominique Pisciotta, Care and Share originally combatted hunger in the community by assembling food baskets in volunteers’ basements and a two car-garage on South Wahsatch Street.
Today, it collects, vets and distributes more than 20 million pounds of mostly donated food to 282 food pantries, soup kitchens and other partners across 31 counties in southern Colorado. Since 2009, it has operated out of an east Colorado Springs base, with a cavernous three-story Indiana Jones-style warehouse stocked with towering rows of shelves, cold storage, inspection and staging areas for foodstuffs that are constantly on the move.
“This facility really has been transformative for Care and Share,” said COO Shannon Coker. “Prior to opening this facility, we would turn away more food annually than we distributed because we just didn’t have the space.”
Last month, Care and Share opened its first food pantries in Fountain and in Pueblo. They operate on a model meant to provide a more familiar and dignified shopping experience. The organization also introduced mobile markets, a “grocer on wheels” in a repurposed beverage truck, that travel to neighborhoods especially hard hit by the pandemic, and where residents may face financial and geographic barriers to accessing such resources.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2019 household food insecurity report found that more than 35 million Americans were struggling with hunger. Feeding America estimates that number was closer to 50 million last year, as more families and individuals were facing job hiatuses and losses, and panic buying stripped store shelves.
Glen Hoffstetter loads donated food items into the Care and Share truck in Colorado Springs on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021. Care and Share distributed 22 million pounds of food last year. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
“The pandemic hit us two-fold, where we saw more and more neighbors in need of food access ... and a decrease in the amount of food we were able to get through our usual channels,” said Coker, a Springs native who traces her passion for her work to the volunteering she did in high school, for Care and Share’s Harvest of Love food drive.
For a hand-to-mouth operation with marching orders that are “truly, every single day, to get our hands on as much food as we can possibly get our hands on, from wherever we can get it,” it’s constantly fingers-crossed that sources don’t run dry, Coker said.
Over the past year, they periodically have.
The hoarding behavior that arose at the start of the pandemic meant less supplies for the food bank, which saw a “huge decrease” in the amount of food it traditionally received from major grocery store partners around town such as King Soopers and Walmart, Coker said.
A later resurgence in cases of the virus triggered a rise in that behavior again around the holidays. And then a series of severe winter weather, in Colorado and around the country, in early 2021 has impacted the amount of food available locally and through Feeding America.
“Although the pandemic has affected things in a big way, the food is out there. It’s a matter of food banks getting their hands on it and getting it out to people in need,” Coker said.
Andrew Brannon wipes off peppers while sorting through them at Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021. Care and Share distributed 22 million pounds of food last year. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
When it can't acquire food, the organization buys it: Its board has approved an additional $3 million in spending to purchase food during the pandemic, Cocker said.
Though Care and Share supports a number of Southern Colorado shelters and soup kitchens that feed the homeless, much of the 22 million pounds of food it distributed between July of 2019 and June 2020 went to agencies and food banks that serve low-income working individuals and families.
“So many of the families that we help serve are working, and just aren’t able to make their paychecks cover all the bills. They’re seniors on fixed incomes,” Coker said.
It’s not just about the food, but about allowing struggling families to use the money they otherwise would have spent on groceries for other essentials.
“With the recent cold snaps that we’ve seen, those utility bills increase, and sometimes it’s just difficult to move that food budget around," Coker said.
If it weren’t for the weekly groceries she gets from Care and Share partner nonprofit agency Tri-Lakes Cares, in Monument — well, Suzi Huette said she prefers not to imagine what life might be like.
"Say you will never be in this situation? I didn’t think I would be, but I couldn’t be more blessed to have these people in my life, because they have enriched me," said Huette, 76. “I wouldn’t be able to afford some of my medications, because it would be too costly for me to go to the grocery store and get some of the food I like.”
Volunteer Mandy Zarkovacki fills bags with refrigerated food items at Tri-Lakes Cares in Monument in preparation for people to come pick them up on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021.(Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
For 53-year-old Lorie Hicks, of Monument, what some might call “rescued food” has been a lifeboat for her and her family after she began to suffer the debilitating effects of lupus at age 40, and ultimately had to give up the day spa business she’d started.
“Even through all of this, we just transitioned right in. Never missed a beat, at all, as far with COVID. That was comforting in all the distress of all the chaos anyway,” said Hicks, who cares for an adult son with disabilities. “Without them, I don’t know how we would survive. We would not, truthfully.”
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