Earlier this month, the state Board of Human Services delayed its vote on whether to implement a change preventing the , or SNAP, from paying for most sweetened beverages.

The board had planned to take up the question again Friday, with a final vote scheduled. Instead, the board will now receive a without taking action.

The Colorado Department of Human Services didn’t immediately clarify whether it would bring the plan before the board again.

The change, known as the , wouldn’t allow the federal food assistance program to pay for drinks with added sugar or artificial sweeteners, unless they also contain milk or at least 50% juice.

Chocolate milk, unsweetened seltzers and some juice drinks would remain options, but diet and full-sugar sodas would no longer be eligible. People who receive SNAP funds could still buy those drinks with their other income.

At the March meeting, four members of the nine-person board said they would have voted against the proposal, three were in favor and two hadn’t decided after at least five hours of testimony.

The supported the change as a way to improve health by reducing sugar consumption. Anti-hunger groups said it would make the program more complicated and discourage food-insecure families from signing up.

Mariah Guerrero, senior public policy manager with , called the decision not to move forward with the waiver a “victory for Colorado families.”

“The board listened to the community’s concerns and chose dignity over stigma, and access over restriction,” she said in a news release.

The Colorado Healthy Choice Waiver would have limited the kinds of drinks people can buy using the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, starting April 30, although the board’s vote late Friday afternoon pushes back that timeline.

If the Colorado Board of Human Services ultimately votes for the waiver, people will no longer be able to use SNAP funds to pay for beverages with added sugar or artificial sweeteners unless they contain milk, a plant-based milk substitute or at least 50% juice.

Chocolate milk, unsweetened seltzers and some juice drinks will remain options, while diet and full-sugar sodas will no longer be eligible. SNAP recipients can use their other income to purchase ineligible drinks, if they have the resources to do so.

The nine-member board was evenly split at the end of a nearly eight-hour public meeting, with four members opposed, three in favor and two undecided.

If the board ultimately votes down the waiver, it would put Colorado in an unusual position of rejecting a change it had requested. The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave Colorado and 17 other states permission to limit SNAP from paying for soft drinks, but without the board’s approval, the Colorado Department of Human Services can’t write the regulations needed to make that change.

At a previous meeting in February, nearly every member of the public who spoke urged the board to reject the measure. The majority of comments still opposed it at Friday’s meeting, but state agency leaders and physicians’ groups spoke in favor of the change.

About 600,000 people in Colorado, approximately half of them children, received a combined $120 million in SNAP benefits in 2025.

Restricting recipients from buying soda won’t save states money, because they will still get the same allotment to spend on other foods. Workers for the Colorado Department of Human Services estimated about 9.2% of SNAP dollars go toward sugar- and artificially sweetened beverages, making it the second-largest category behind meat, poultry and seafood.

Hunger Free Colorado came out against the restrictions, arguing they will increase shame and stigma, causing families to forgo SNAP benefits. The policy also could increase hunger if retailers find the rules too difficult and decide to stop accepting SNAP, the group said.

The Colorado Medical Society, which voted to support removing sugary beverages from SNAP in 2023, submitted a letter noting that studies repeatedly have linked those drinks to negative health outcomes, including obesity and diabetes.

Given limitations on funding to care for low-income people through Medicaid, the state shouldn’t subsidize products linked to worse health, the group said.

Every eligible school district signed up for the program and students ate 25 million more school meals than the year before. But food prices continued to rise across the country and state officials quickly realized: The program needed a lot more money.

The rising price tag — $50 million above estimates in each of its first two years — puts the program, known as , at a crossroads. 

Propositions LL and MM, on the ballot in November’s election, will determine the future of the universal school meals program.

Yes on both, and it continues on, with enough money to fulfill all its initial promises, advocates said. LL allows the state to keep and spend tax dollars collected above the projections approved with Proposition FF in 2022, while MM will expand the tax on high-income households to bolster the program.

Further, MM will also help fund the state’s share of the following changes to federal eligibility requirements.

Healthy School Meals for All is funded by limiting write-offs that Coloradans making more than $300,000 per year can claim. LL would allow the state to keep about $12.4 million in taxes collected over initial expectations set in the 2022 measure.

MM would further limit the write-offs, from $16,000 now for joint filers at that income level to $2,000. It would, in effect, raise taxes on high-income Colorado taxpayers a year, while leaving taxes for Coloradans making less than $300,000 per year alone. The tax increase would affect less than 6% of Colorado taxpayers.

If both fail, the Healthy School Meals for All Program will be pared back into a program that only gives universal school meals to low-income schools, and free meals to low-income students at wealthier schools — a system similar to what preceded it.

“Without LL and MM, hunger will rise sharply across our state,” said Anya Rose, director of public policy for , a key backer of the proposals. “We know kids were going hungry at school. We’ll go back to that method where many students are not accessing meals at school, either because their families can’t afford it or because they’re facing that fear of shame and stigma.”

In the 2023-2024 school year, the first with Healthy School Meals for All in place and the most recent data available, schools across the state reported serving 8 million more breakfasts than the year before and more than 16 million more lunches — respective increases of 37% and 30%, according to .

Hungry Free Colorado the program saved Colorado families $1,250 per child in school annually.

Emma Ansara, a mother of three in south Denver, hasn’t tallied her exact savings from the program, but the help has made her finances easier as three sons worked through school. And she’s appreciated not worrying about surprise over-budget bills when the school term ends and cafeteria bills come due, she said.

The free meals have also been a safety net as she juggles her sons’ schedules with her own as a Ph.D. student and nurse practitioner. Sometimes, lunch planning falls through as their morning schedules dance around each other. 

But the other kids in their classrooms, and the feeling of support from the community voting in Healthy School Meals, are where she sees the program really shining. Every kid being sure of a meal at school, including hers, helps make a better learning environment for everyone, she said.

“We have a lot of families in Colorado who are food insecure,” Ansara said. “This seems like a really thoughtful and planful way to meet kids where they are. Them having access to food throughout the school day really shows up in a lot of ways, both in their physical health and their learning.”

She added, “Learning is a communal process.”

Colorado voter guide: Stories and explainers for the 2025 election

LL and MM have scant formal opposition

Taxpayers for a Better Deal, an issue committee linked with the libertarian-leaning think tank , registered in opposition to the measures, though it reported having raised and spent zero dollars for the effort as of Sept. 30, the most recent filing period.

In a statement opposing the measures, the organization referred to Healthy School Meals for All as a “failed experiment,” blasted it as “financially unsound” and called it a case of “classic bracket creep” because inflation will drive more families into the tax bracket that pays for the program.

Jon Caldara, the institute’s president, reiterated the argument that led the opposition toward Proposition FF in 2022. Yes, lower-income folks should get free meals. But kids whose families can afford school lunch shouldn’t have taxpayers foot the bill.

“Why are we taxing wealthy people to buy free lunches for the kids of just slightly less wealthy people,” Caldera said in a statement. “Of course, children of poorer families should get a free lunch. But buying lunch for those who can afford it isn’t charity. It����ap theft.”

Supporters of the measure formed . That committee, which is linked to Hunger Free Colorado, has reported raising $683,000 to support the measure. 

The program’s funding source does look to those who can most afford the higher tax rate, said Rose, with Hunger Free Colorado. But she noted that even those high-income families will reap savings if they have any kids in public schools.

“This is a time when folks are facing an affordability crunch, but that����ap why it����ap really important there’s an equitable mechanism here,” Rose said.

'Kids need these meals'

Shannon Thompson, public policy and legislative chair for the , said the extra money will also help keep school meals healthy and made from scratch. Cutting back would mean a heavier reliance on heat-and-serve meals and other prepared foods.

The program aims to use more locally grown foods -- a goal that����ap been stifled by the lack of available money. Having funds to pay for more staff and better training in the state’s “biggest restaurant chain” will mean better, healthier meals.

Thompson also shot down complaints that the program has led to more food waste because students aren’t paying for the meals. Instead, it's long lines and short lunch periods that have kids dumping uneaten food. They simply don’t have time, she said.

That finding was echoed by after the program’s inaugural year and, supporters say, a product of the program’s success in drawing in kids.

"Right now, the original Proposition FF was so successful it cost the state of Colorado more than was anticipated. That success was really important to show that kids need these meals,” Thompson said. “...If Proposition LL and MM don't pass, it's going to reduce that equitable playing field that we've made over the past couple of years for students."

“We have one person that told us, ‘We’re not not eating, we’re just not eating meals anymore,'” said Brianne Snow, executive director of the Silverthorne-based . “That is creating a lot of stress on families.”

The lack of food triggers wide-ranging ripple effects. The Summit County resource center has seen its biggest influx of domestic violence survivors in years, Snow said.

“When we talk to these people, it����ap really revolving around huge financial stress, so we’re seeing food insecurity leak out in other ways, as well,” Snow said.

Executives with Colorado food banks and support organizations are sounding the alarm about record-breaking need for food assistance across the state as their organizations contend with federal funding cuts to programs that include the and the , or SNAP.

Chad Molter, executive director of Boulder’s , is also worried about how the lingering government shutdown could surge demand. The pantry is calling for more community donations — both food and monetary — as it tries to stock up.

“I have these dreams of us being in a better place than we are,” Molter said. “I know it takes a lot to move the needle. We’re downstream from a lot of things happening that we can’t control.”

Ellen Ross, director of development and communications for the in Boulder, said the organization is also bracing for more people in the community to need help.

“We’re obviously anticipating an increase if the government shutdown continues (and with the) nature of SNAP cuts,” Ross said.

This spring, the Trump administration cut about $500 million in funding that went toward the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which supplements states’ food bank supplies.

Since those cuts, protein has been hard to come by at the food bank in Routt County, said executive director Sue Fegelein, who joined Summit County’s Snow and other executives in a virtual roundtable Wednesday organized by Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet,

“We have not been able to get the meats we used to get provided through Emergency Food Assistance,” Fegelein said. “In its place, we’ve been getting fish sticks. And not a lot of them.”

Similarly, Bob O’Connor, CEO of the , said his Greeley-based organization is down 900 pounds of food this year compared to 2024, due to the Emergency Food Assistance Program cuts.

The Weld Food Bank serves 1,700 people a day through an emergency food box program and delivers sustenance to 600 homebound seniors every month.

“We’re serving more people in a day than we used to serve in a week, and the amount of food coming in is far less,” O’Connor said. “That means not every day of the week is there meat or other staples. The other thing is, food doesn’t happen in a vacuum. If you’re coming in for food, you’re also struggling to pay utilities and rent, so we’re hopefully keeping people from living in their cars or on the streets.”

O’Connor said the food bank is seeing more clients just above the poverty line who can’t make ends meet.

About 11% of Coloradans lack reliable access to nutritional food, according to the most 

More than 600,000 Coloradans receive SNAP benefits, commonly referred to as food stamps. The federally funded program allows low-income residents across the country to buy food. Bennet said federal support for SNAP continues through the end of this month, but that come November, the program’s future is uncertain.

The massive passed by House Republicans this summer reworked the SNAP program, restricting who can access food resources. Legislators cut about $186 billion from SNAP funding through 2034, according to estimates from the

Food assistance leaders in the state worried about what will happen to Colorado communities already plagued by hunger after the looming federal cuts and restricted access to resources.

“Without food, we will see significant ripple effects with respect to the health of people in our communities,” said Amber Henning, the Western Slope director of development and community relations for the . “The choices they’re making as to whether they seek health care or pay their bills or eat. It����ap important to recognize food is the stone in the water, and the ripples are significant and wide, and we will see a lot of ripple effects. More than we have now.”

Those who want to help can give back in a number of ways, said Nate Springer, president and CEO of the .

They include:

• Donate food or money to a local food bank in your area
• Volunteer your time at a food bank organization
• Organize a food drive at your home, school or church
• Advocate and amplify the message that neighbors in your community are struggling to eat and programs designed to help them are financially hurting

While some may have negative preconceived notions about those who use food banks, Springer emphasized that it’s everyday people in your neighborhood — teachers, active duty military members, construction workers, health care employees, hungry children — who are being served by them.

“Every single person can help their neighbors in multiple ways,” Springer said.

Prairie Mountain Media reporters James Burky and Dana Cadey contributed to this report.

Trump and House Republicans’ bill, which passed the U.S. House on May 22, would seek to offset $4.5 trillion in tax cuts in part by cutting nearly — or SNAP — by 2034.

The reductions would include new work requirements, capping a program that provides dietary planning, shifting more costs to the state, and barring non-permanent residents — including people in the U.S. legally — from accessing the program.

The bill also proposes , which has drawn significant criticism from Democrats and health care providers.

But the impacts to SNAP have received less attention. Republicans have cast the changes as necessary to ensure the program accomplished its goal.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents the Eastern Plains, said Friday that she supported stricter work requirements to ensure “able-bodied adults without dependents” are working. She said the bill’s requirements would curb federal spending, which she argued had “exploded” within SNAP in recent years.

“If you’re able to work, then you should go to work,” she said. “Even the Bible says if you don’t work, you don’t eat. There’s a lot of pride that comes with earning a living and going out and being a part of the workforce.”

But Democrats and advocates warn that the bill will instead endanger food access for vulnerable Coloradans, and they point to research showing that — but . Roughly 131,000 low-income Coloradans — nearly 20% of the people who receive SNAP — could lose access to the program under the bill’s work requirements, . That’s among roughly 3.2 million people at risk nationwide.

The bill is “going to increase hunger, I think it����ap going to increase hardship,” said Anya Rose, the director of public policy at Hunger Free Colorado. “This is slashing support for 1 in 10 Coloradans who rely on SNAP. And then it����ap shifting billions in costs to the states.”

Filling the hole left by Congress, she continued, “would be incredibly difficult.”

10% of state uses SNAP

The program provides money for low-income people to buy food. In Colorado, a family of four . Qualifying households , ranging from a maximum of $292 for a single-person household to $1,756 for an eight-person home. The benefits can be spent on a variety of foods but not alcohol, hot foods or other household items.

More than 615,000 Coloradans have used SNAP benefits this fiscal year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That amounts to just over 10% of the state.

, 64% of SNAP recipients in Colorado are families with children, and 46% of them are in working families.

But under the tax bill, benefits would be at risk for more than 20% of those residents, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ estimates. Simultaneously, the legislation would add as much as $259 million in new annual costs to a cash-strapped Colorado in the coming years,

The proposal is now in the Senate, where it’s likely to undergo additional changes. All four of Colorado’s House Republicans voted for the bill, while its four Democratic lawmakers voted against it.

Senate Republicans have already expressed some concern about the depth of the SNAP cuts, . Republican House Speaker Mike Johnston has asked his Senate colleagues to leave the bill largely unchanged, while alterations.

The Colorado Department of Human Services, which oversees SNAP in the state, declined interview requests, and spokespeople would not say if the agency had estimated how many Coloradans could lose access to food benefits under the bill.

Spokeswoman AnneMarie Harper said the state “can’t speculate on what impacts (the bill) could have on Colorado and the people (the department) is honored to serve.”

Outside groups have provided such estimates. Under the proposal passed by one vote in the House, work requirements would be expanded to include adults up to retirement age who either don’t live with children or who have kids over the age of 7.

that 22,000 Colorado families in the state would lose some or all of their SNAP benefits under the new work requirements, while the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities puts the number at 131,000 people at risk of losing benefits.

The two think tanks rely on different datasets: CBPP uses SNAP data, while the Urban Institute uses a model based on Census Bureau information, said Dottie Rosenbaum, CBPP’s director of federal SNAP policy. CBPP’s estimates are also based on individuals, while Urban’s projections are for families.

Harper did not respond when asked about the groups’ estimates.

‘Responsibly reforming SNAP benefits’

Other than Boebert, Colorado’s House Republicans — U.S. Reps. Gabe Evans, Jeff Crank and Jeff Hurd — either declined or did not respond to interview requests Thursday.

In statements and prior interviews, all four heralded the advancement of the tax bill as a win for the state. At a news conference Thursday, Evans said that “fearmongering” had obscured the benefits delivered by the tax bill, which included increased border security.

The SNAP changes represent “another example of a common-sense reform that Congress is implementing through this legislation, making sure that SNAP benefits go to the most needy, that we’re not wasting federal resources, and that states have incentives to utilize these SNAP benefits effectively,” .

While the work requirement changes will create new barriers for entry to the program, other proposals would undercut SNAP’s funding. Under current law, the federal government pays 100% of the cost of SNAP benefits, while it evenly splits administrative costs with the states.

But House Republicans’ bill would require states to begin paying at least 5% of the cost of the benefits by 2028, plus 75% of the administrative costs. While the new administrative toll would shift more than $40 million in new spending to Colorado’s coffers, that the new benefit cost would require the state to pay another $259 million more starting in fiscal year 2028.

That’s driven in large part because the tax bill would require the state to pay higher amounts depending on its error rate, which is based on the accuracy of eligibility requirements and payment. Colorado’s error rate was 8.6% in fiscal year 2023, according to USDA data.

If that were the error rate in 2028, when this change would come into effect, that would mean the state would have to assume 20% of the program’s cost going forward.

Harper confirmed the 2023 error rate but declined to comment on it.

It’s impossible to forecast the state’s fiscal outlook three years from now. But adding roughly $300 million in new costs would be a significant addition to the state’s budget. What’s more, a decline in SNAP and Medicaid enrollment would mean fewer children receiving federally funded school meals, Rose said, which will place additional costs on the state’s meals program.

Colorado’s current budget situation is grim: Lawmakers had to scale back roughly $1.2 billion in spending this year and have warned that next year will be even worse. That bleak outlook doesn’t include steep cuts to SNAP and Medicaid that are part of Congressional Republicans’ tax and budget discussions.

The scale of those reductions could require lawmakers to return to the Capitol for a special session in the coming months.

“I look to this as being something potentially catastrophic to many families,” Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat and the vice-chair of the state’s Joint Budget Committee, told reporters of the SNAP cuts Thursday. “And something the state will have significant challenges backfilling.”

Voters approved the program in 2022 with the passage of Proposition FF. It gives all Colorado school children free breakfast and lunch, regardless of their families’ ability to pay. Backers originally expected the free meals would cost between $48.5 million and $78.5 million annually.

Now, state budget analysts expect it to cost .

State lawmakers last year nixed some auxiliary pieces of the program to make up the gap, and they plan to do so again this year. That will still leave the state about $50 million short of what it would take to fully fund the program.

But with the state general fund facing its own $1 billion shortfall, there are few options for lawmakers to make up the gap.

Instead, it will likely fall on voters to decide the program’s fate this November. , sponsored by Rep. Lorena Garcia and Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, both Democrats, would send two questions to voters this fall: one to allow the program to keep $12.4 million the state collected above its revenue projections, and a second to boost its collections by further limiting income tax deductions for Coloradans making more than $300,000 per year.

For people whose adjusted gross income is in that category, the current deduction limits set under Prop. FF — $12,000 for single filers and $16,000 for joint filers — would decrease to $1,000 and $2,000, respectively. The difference would go to support the meals program, bringing in an estimated $100 million per year, depending on federal tax policy.

The proposal passed its first committee vote Thursday. It still needs to pass the full House of Representatives and the Senate before lawmakers place it on the ballot.

“This bill is trying to correct a problem that we could not see coming, and now we are trying our best to catch up,” Garcia said at the hearing, noting that “we’re letting (voters) choose whether to continue this program.”

The program provides more than 600,000 meals a day across the state, according to the advocacy group Hunger Free Colorado, for a total of more than 100 million meals served in its first full year. It prioritizes the sourcing of food from local farmers, feeding both rural economies and students who otherwise couldn’t learn with empty bellies — while also giving families a much-needed break on rising food costs, advocates say.

“Access to free meals is more important than ever to Colorado families,” Anya Rose, policy director for Hunger Free Colorado, testified at the hearing.

The bill cleared its first hurdle on a 7-5 party-line vote, with the Democratic majority in favor. Republican Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, a former school principal from Eaton, questioned the costs of providing meals to every family, including the most affluent — especially as broader economic conditions threaten to roil families and the state budget further.

“This is a noble cause,” Garcia Sander said ahead of the vote. “I know students need food in their bellies to focus and to learn. That said, I think if voters who approved FF knew how much food is thrown away, they’d be appalled. … Our most affluent communities are preparing food that is getting tossed.”

Costs likewise rankled members of the Joint Budget Committee earlier in the week. The powerful budget-drafting committee is tasked with cutting state spending while trying to preserve money for state priorities.

If the proposed questions do make the ballot, voters won’t weigh in until Nov. 4 — well into the next state fiscal year, which begins July 1, and the program’s $50 million shortfall. The timing left the budget-writing lawmakers grappling with how to keep the program going, and to what extent, without tapping into a constantly strapped education budget.

They haven’t landed on a recommendation, but the committee could limit the free school meals program to only school districts within certain poverty guidelines, for example. Or it could limit which meals districts provide or exclude high school students.

“We just don’t have the capacity to use the state (education) fund as an insurance policy to cover cost overruns,” Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat, said.

The lawmakers also discussed finding a way to float the program through just the end of the calendar year and letting voters’ November decision set its fate from there.

“I absolutely understand the fiscal situation we are in,” Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat on the budget committee, said. “I also don’t want to do something that dismantles or creates dysfunction in this program that the voters are going to potentially — should it pass — have a decision on.”

It’s one of many ways the city has directed revenue from that unusual tax to a range of programs focused on improving health equity in the community.

Maria Fraire, one of nearly 1,500 people across 370 families now enrolled in , has relied on the monthly stipend to sustain her vegan diet, typically shopping at Whole Foods. She’s been part of the initiative for about a year, receiving the maximum $80 per month toward produce purchases for her family.

“My breakfast is vegetables; my lunch is vegetables,” she said in Spanish. Originally from Zacatecas, Mexico, Fraire has lived in Boulder for almost 25 years.

Because of how expensive fresh produce can be, she said, “For me, (the program) helps a lot.”

Fruit & Veg Boulder is part of that also serves Longmont residents. Enrollees must meet ; for a family of four, the household’s annual adjusted gross income should fall under $55,500. Residents of those cities can participate if they do not otherwise qualify for two federal food aid programs that assist low-income families and women who are pregnant or have young children.

The produce program fills a gap by helping, in part, undocumented immigrants and mixed immigration status families, or households with both U.S. citizens and people without legal status.

Program participants buy produce using paper coupons. Households made up of one or two people receive $40 per month, while those with three or more people get $80 per month.

The funding for Boulder’s part of the program comes mostly from the city’s , awarded by its , while Longmont draws on other funding sources. Boulder became one of to tax sugary drinks after its ballot measure in the 2016 election. Other cities with soda taxes include Seattle, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

The tax, which took effect in July 2017, collects a 2-cent excise tax per ounce from distributors of sweetened beverages, such as soda and energy drinks. The dictated that tax revenue would go toward health promotion, wellness programs and chronic disease prevention.

The amount of soda tax revenue dedicated to the Fruit & Veg Boulder program sometimes varies, but it is receiving $298,000 in 2024 — the same as last year, said Elizabeth Crowe, deputy director of Boulder’s Housing and Human Services Department.

The program has received additional money from the city’s allocations in the federal, pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act: $55,000 this year and $88,000 last year. The extra money was used to help reduce the program’s active waitlist, Crowe said.

“We need this access”

The overwhelming demand for the program is spurred in part by Boulder’s high cost of living. To make a living wage in Boulder County, an adult with no children would need to earn $26.36 per hour at their job, according to . For a parent with two children, it’s $65.26 per hour — several times the $14.42 minimum wage in Boulder and Longmont, though the county’s minimum wage in unincorporated areas is slightly higher.

“There are many people who are struggling to get by and to make it in Boulder County,” said Amelia Hulbert, who leads Boulder County Public Health’s Healthy Eating, Active Living team.

In Boulder, Fruit & Veg program enrollees can frequent the Boulder Farmers Market and eight participating grocery stores, including King Soopers and Whole Foods Market.

Organizations that connect families with the program are seeing the impact on their community, though gaps in access still remain.

Elena Aranda is the co-director of , a nonprofit that supports the county’s Latino community. She attended an event at the Boulder Farmers Market last week, sitting in the shade as market goers ambled along 13th Street, reusable bags on their arms.

“You don’t see our community coming here,” Aranda said, “because it’s not affordable.”

But because of the Boulder program, participants with coupons in hand are starting to feel welcome in the space, Aranda said. “We need this access, especially for children,” she added.

Still, Jorge De Santiago, El Centro Amistad co-director, said the program can serve only a “very small percentage of the families who really need the support.”

Because he doesn’t foresee demand shrinking, De Santiago would like the program to expand throughout the rest of the county.

Hulbert also wants to see the program increase the monthly allotment for participants, noting that, “with inflation, groceries are more expensive.”

Program is now 5 years old

The Fruit & Veg Boulder program kicked off in 2019, followed in 2020 by the Longmont program, which now serves more than 1,000 people across 225 families.

Besides funding its part of the program, the city of Boulder awards soda tax revenue through the Health Equity Fund to organizations working on food and water security, health and wellness education, physical fitness and more. This year, it recommended about 50 awards, totaling $3.8 million, according to a list of fund allocations.

Among other recipients are Clinica Campesina Family Health Services, a community health center that received $175,180 for comprehensive primary care services for residents, and Community Food Share, a food bank that was awarded $116,946 to gather and distribute healthy food.

Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett praised his city’s Fruit & Veg program as “a transformative initiative in our community.”

He also pointed to a positive impact on local businesses where participants shop.

Emmy Bender, co-owner of , sells vegetables grown on her Boulder County farm at the Boulder Farmers Market. Now in its second year in business, Bender estimates 10%-15% of last year’s sales involved some sort of low-income assistance like the Fruit & Veg Boulder program.

She described it as a “win-win for everybody.”

“Local farmers are able to sell their food and support local economies and soil health,” Bender said. “And then people are able to access our food that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it.”

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But these adjustments come not out of strategy but rather necessity, as a system that was already collapsing is now under far more stress, said Juan Sebastian Olivares, the mobile outreach coordinator for , a statewide food advocacy nonprofit.

, an anti-hunger organization featuring a fresh food market downtown, saw nearly 5,000 visits in January 2024, almost double the number recorded in the same month a year prior, said the organization’s Communications & Marketing Specialist Brandon McKinley. With wait times for a market appointment stretching as long as six weeks, the new clients instead turned to the organization’s emergency bags, filled with ready-to-go food items, for immediate sustenance.

But what was supposed to be an emergency solution became more popular than fresh food appointments, McKinley said, as visitors routinely sought out a few days’ worth of short-term food options in the bags rather than waiting for a chance to get a week’s worth of healthier food at the market. To combat this trend, Metro Caring will pause distribution of the bags at the end of February, though McKinley noted that the agency does not have a definitive timeline for how long the pause would last.

“Sometimes those bags were not filled with enough variety or quality of food that would last folks even a couple of days,” McKinley said. “The community has shared with us that the (market) model is better, more dignified and more equitable than just handing out bags of food that people may or may not want to use.”

Community members are eligible to shop in the market every month, McKinley said.

Losing a resource for immediate food aid is part of a larger issue concerning Denver food distributors, said Olivares, which were lacking adequate food resources and a consistent workforce to distribute them even before the influx of migrants to the city.

“There are too many immigrants that are requesting help,” Olivares said. “Before that, the food banks and food pantries (already) had limited resources.”

The end of the emergency food stamp allotments in March 2023 made it harder for many low-income Coloradans to buy groceries, and, in addition to food inflation and cost of living increases, forced more to turn to food banks and pantries for help, said Erin Pulling, president and CEO of , a nonprofit that mainly distributes food to over 800 local organizations in Colorado and Wyoming.

The food bank has seen a drastic increase in demand since the program ended, Pulling said. The bank is now outright purchasing one-third of its distributed food, spending over $1.5 million per month to supplement a donation pipeline that has not kept up with the soaring demand.

To keep up with the growing demand from the migrants coming into the Denver area, the bank began creating and distributing its own emergency bags in August 2023, Pulling said. Since then, the organization has spent nearly $100,000 on over 15,000 bags filled with shelf-stable ingredients meant to serve as meal preparation for migrants without access to kitchens.

Although the Food Bank of the Rockies has been spending more than usual on food, the organization has not yet been forced to remove any of its other services to accommodate the extra expenditures, Pulling said.

“What it has meant is we are more dependent on philanthropic income than we ever have been before,” Pulling said. “We’re depending on the generosity of the general public to make financial gifts to make this possible.”

The lack of resources extends to the city level as well. While city shelters serve meals three times per day to those housed inside, the influx of migrants brought shelter capacity to an all-time peak of 4,900 people in mid-January, said Jon Ewing, marketing and communications specialist for Denver Human Services. But while the city saw 300 arrivals per day at the peak of the influx, those numbers have since subsided.

City officials are now encouraging eligible migrants to sign up for work authorization, hoping to discharge people from the shelters into more sustainable living situations, Ewing said.

“I’m enormously appreciative of any of the food banks who have stepped up to help folks,” Ewing said. “When they’re feeling the strain, we’re feeling the strain. I think we’re all feeling the strain of this response right now.”

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Hunger Free Colorado, which is part of The Denver Post����ap Season to Share program, aims to slash that percentage by helping people navigate complex food assistance programs and by advocating for children’s access to free, healthy food at school.

“We absolutely can as a society end hunger if we set our minds upon that goal,” CEO Marc Jacobson said.

The need is particularly acute after federal officials in March through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest federal food program. On average, monthly benefits were reduced by $90 per person.

The amount of money a person receives depends on a number of factors, including income and household size. Since the COVID-19 additional assistance ended, each person receives, on average, about $181 a month — or $5.94 a day,

Nearly a tenth of Coloradans — about 540,000 people — use the program. Two-thirds of the Colorado families that use SNAP have children, and a third are caring for elderly or disabled people, .

People eligible for benefits often struggle to navigate the multiple-step process to enroll, Jacobson said. That difficulty is increased for people who are disabled, who don’t speak English or who don’t have homes. The organization has helped 28,000 Colorado households navigate the application process.

“A lot of folks are worrying about if they can reliably or consistently provide healthy food for their families,” Jacobson said. “It shouldn’t be that way.”

Benu Amun-Ra, who uses SNAP and is a member of Hunger Free Colorado’s Community Council, said the pandemic exacerbated inequities and gaps in Colorado’s food supply chain.

“There is a huge gap to getting food on the table,” she said.

During the pandemic, food banks and pantries struggled to provide fresh, healthy foods. Amun-Ra, who is also a farmer, helped connect food banks with local producers who could provide vegetables, fruits and other nutritious fare. Colorado needs to continue efforts to help connect farms to family tables, she said.

In 2024, Hunger Free Colorado will continue its focus on the implementation of a program to provide free, nutritious lunches to Colorado schoolkids. The organization helped lead a successful ballot initiative in 2022 that created which will provide grants to Colorado schools to buy and serve local foods.

Colorado became the third state to provide free healthy school meals when Proposition FF passed, and several other states have followed suit since.

Kids who have stable access to nutritious foods learn more and have fewer behavioral problems, according to the organization.

“With food prices still high, people need as many resources as possible to help them access healthy food,” Jacobson said.

Hunger Free Colorado

Address: 1355 S. Colorado Blvd. Suite 201, Denver, CO 80222

Number of employees: 36

Annual budget: $5.8 million

Number of clients served: 57,000 in the last year

The bird flu swept through the country’s turkey farms in 2022, driving up the cost of the Thanksgiving meal centerpiece. The flu also helped boost the price of eggs.

The toll on turkeys and overall inflation resulted in a record price tag of $64.05 for a holiday meal for 10 people in 2022, according to the . The average total for this year’s meal tab is expected to be $61.17, slightly lower but well above the average of $53.31 in 2021 and up a whopping 25% compared to 2019, the farm bureau said.

Shoppers might not know the precise percentages involved, but they’re experiencing the increases with every trip to the grocery store. Families having trouble making ends meet are particularly vulnerable as prices stay elevated, and food banks and anti-hunger programs are feeling the strain.

“Even though turkey’s down, the overall food price inflation is up this year. You’re going to see people probably spend a little less this year than last year,” said Dawn Thilmany, a professor of agricultural economics at Colorado State University and director of the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Regional Food Business Center.

Overall prices at the grocery store are 2.5% higher, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Thilmany said some of the increases per category are 4% for dairy and 8.5% for fruits and vegetables, which includes fresh and some processed items.

USDA figures in September showed that turkeys cost about $1.27 per pound, compared to $2 around Thanksgiving 2022. The price of eggs has dropped 14%.

“Turkey and eggs are about the only products I can think of that are lower than last year,” Thilmany said.

Farmers are feeling the effects of inflation, too, American Farm Bureau Federation President Vincent “Zippy” Duvall said in a statement.

“Growing the food families rely on is a constant challenge for farmers because of high fuel, seed, fertilizer and transportation costs, just to name a few,” Duvall said.

For food banks and nonprofits, the pressure of inflation was aggravated by t or food stamps, put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Erin Pulling, president and CEO of Food Bank of the Rockies, said the average family of four saw a $370 drop in assistance per month.

“What we’ve seen at some of our mobile food pantries is an increase of 40 to 60% (in people) over what it was several months ago before the SNAP decrease took effect,” Pulling said.

has experienced a big jump in calls to its hotline. The organization, which provides services and information statewide, normally receives roughly 300 calls a day, said Alejandra Ospina Estefan, associate director of client services.

After the expiration of the temporary increases in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP — the number of calls a day surged to more than 500, Estefan said.

“That’s significantly higher than our pre-pandemic number and showcases the need that still exists in the state,” Estefan said. “People are having to make difficult choices right now between buying groceries and covering other bills like housing, medication.”

While the cost of individual turkeys might be lower this year, the Food Bank of the Rockies paid 46% more for the birds than last year, Pulling said. The food bank bought 13,500 turkeys, or five truckloads, for this year’s meals.

The rising need combined with higher food prices and overall cost-of-living increases have tripled the food bank’s monthly costs to $1.5 million from $300,000 to $400,000 when the emergency SNAP assistance was still in place.

Another factor is that the percentage of food funneled to food banks from the Department of Agriculture has dropped. About 13% of the Food Bank of the Rockies’ provisions come from the USDA, compared to 30% before the pandemic. Pulling said it’s a matter of the federal agency’s resources not stretching as far as they previously did.

The food bank, which partners with about 800 organizations in Colorado and Wyoming, distributed enough food in 2018 to provide 145,000 meals each day. The current volume is enough for 181,000 meals a day.

Pulling said the food bank is fortunate because it continues to see “an outpouring of support” in volunteers and financial donations. “Because of the generosity of the public, we have not had to scale back the number of people we’re serving and the amount of food we’re distributing,” she said.

It’s likely not what advocates or consumers want to hear, but Thilmany doesn’t expect food prices to return to pre-pandemic levels any time soon.

“The reason they’re not going to go down is that we’ve had some pretty strong movement in this country to pay better wages,” Thilmany said. “There’s good news behind that. We’re seeing households do better.”

But people on fixed incomes and families struggling to pay the bills are having a rough time keeping up, Thilmany added.

“There are going to be some sectors that use a lot of labor that are going to have to charge more and we’re all just going to have to settle into a new normal,” she said.