BOULDER, Colo. — Wednesday marks two weeks since the start of the government shutdown, and leaders at a food pantry in Boulder say they need the community’s help as they prepare for increased need.
“I think what we've been seeing in the last couple of weeks in the community is a lot of uncertainty,” Harvest of Hope Pantry Executive Director Chad Molter said. “And this is may be not new, but it's increasing as the shutdown has happened."
One concern the pantry has is the possibility of federal programs being impacted if the shutdown continues.
Molter said 15% of Harvest of Hope's food donations come from The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). Although the program will not be affected in the near future, the pantry still must prepare themselves if the shutdown continues.
The pantry says orders placed through TEFAP before the shutdown will be delivered, but no new food orders can be placed during it.
“Food has already been purchased for that so we're okay for the moment,” Molter said. “But if funding does get cut for that program, it means about 15% of our food that we relied on here will not be available to our participants.”
The non-profit is intensifying their calls to the community to step up, whether that be through monetary and food donations or by volunteering.
"We need to rally and do all that we can to make sure that the service is provided going forward," Molter said.
Assistance from the community “will be extremely helpful for us as we kind of weather this storm here and look at just an increase in need for food in Boulder,” Molter said.
He estimates there are several hundred people in Boulder without pay and expects the average 130-135 households the pantry serves a day to grow to 200. Molter thinks Harvest of Hope has already seen the number of households they service increase to 150 a day last month.
“We're prepared to do that, but, you know, we're resource challenged, as a lot of nonprofits are, so it's going to it's going to take, as I said, more assistance from the community to make it happen,” Molter said. “I think that it's clear right now that the federal government's not going to kind of come in and save us.”
But even though the community is in these times of uncertainty, Molter said he's holding onto hope.
“I'll go back to the name of our organization. Hope”. “I feel hopeful because of the all of the people who come and support us, help us every day, the resilience of this community, I feel like this is something that we can we can work through,” he said.
Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet said there is record-breaking demand for food assistance, blaming it on cuts to federal funding for food banks and programs like SNAP.
Bennet is holding a roundtable Wednesday with "Feeding Colorado."
On a state level, the Colorado legislature did approve funding to keep WIC running during the shutdown, which helps women and children afford food and necessities.
