Ok, so if this is your first time checking in about Denver Food Rescue (DFR), maybe you?re thinking, what now?is the food drowning? Caught in a burning building? Why does it need to be rescued?
On the contrary, the food is in great shape?leafy greens, shiny apples, colorful roots?just waiting to be chopped into bite size portions and devoured. Instead, it gets thrown away.
Take a minute to think about everything that goes into growing, say, a carrot. Fuel for the planting and harvesting machines. Fuel for the crop dusters. Water (if that carrot is grown in California, well, that?s a serious consideration). Fertilizer. Fuel to get the carrot from California to Colorado. All right, I don?t honestly know all the inputs, but those are the basics. Then, that carrot arrives at your local grocery store, it has a weird lump on one side so everyone picks around it, and a few days later it in the trash or compost. 25 calories, and all those vital, limited resources, wasted.
In fact, the food waste problem in the U.S. goes way beyond a carrot or two. Actually, about30-40% of all food produced here ends up in landfills.
So, yeah, we?re talking about rescuing food. That poor, helpless carrot is bound for the trash heap, andWonder Woman a.k.a Denver Food Rescue swoops in at the last moment, saving the carrot from impending doom. Then the carrot goes on to fulfill its delicious destiny between someone?s teeth. But more on that in next month?s blog post.
What I want to convey here is that in a world defined by limited resources, where even water is getting scarce, DFR rescues not just the food, but saves all of those inputs from being wasted. Those carbon emissions from all that fuel don?t go into the atmosphere for naught?and in an ideal world, where we cut that 30-40% of waste down, we could stabilize or decrease food production and?still feed people in the U.S.
DFR?s vision is big, it?s bold, it?s sustainable?frankly, it?s heroic.
–By Devon Reynolds, a volunteer and fan
Denver Food Rescue
Heart & Hand
As one of the most well-known youth organizations in the country, Boys & Girls Clubs provide young people with The Cope Club serves nearly 1,000 members each year and participates in a variety of community events. The Club also features the Teen Center equipped with computer stations, books and research resources, and serves as a quiet place for teens to concentrate on their studies and have fun. They have had a No Cost Grocery Program since 2015.
As one of the most well-known youth organizations in the country, Boys & Girls Clubs provide young people with opportunities to engage in programs that help them achieve academic success, take charge of their health by building healthy habits that will stick with them throughout their lives, and foster the skills they need to become leaders in their communities.
A major proving ground for all things early childhood, 
The GrowHaus 
I’m so glad to see organizations like yours gaining a foothold in our community. I grew up in a very poor household and many nights dinner was scarce to say the least. I’m now in my 40’s and the thought of throwing out food is simply shameful. I can recall many nights from when I was a child where being offered someone’s leftovers would have been the greatest thing in the world. I’ve always taught my children not to take food if you don’t intend to eat it. As a society we are wasteful on so many fronts, but this is certainly one where we need to greatly improve.