A little over five years ago, the Weld Food Bank served about 300 people per day. Now, that number has has skyrocketed up to 1,700 daily.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who’s running for governor next year, stopped by the Weld Food Bank on Wednesday morning for a tour and discussion on addressing food insecurity in a changing landscape for food banks.
Leadership at the food bank and some of the organization’s partners met with Weiser to discuss the added stress the Weld Food Bank, and most others, have been under for the past five-plus years since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a hard topic,” Weiser said. “Because sometimes people don’t know. And sometimes people don’t want to look.”
Though the pandemic was the beginning of the changes, Director of Marketing and Communications Weston Edmunds said it wasn’t until two years after the pandemic that the switch really flipped.
“We do in one day what we used to do in a week. We do in one week what we used to do in a month,” Edmunds said. “It was in March of 2022 that we saw those numbers jump up exponentially. And it’s gone up by at least 300 or 400 people a day every year since that.”
Chief Development Officer Stephanie Gausch attributed the delayed impacts of the pandemic, at least in part, to other programs stepping up during the thick of the pandemic. But after a couple of years, they either ran their course or simply ran out of money.
“There was so much money that just came flowing out during COVID,” Gausch said. “Now all of that is gone, and the need is three times as large and we don’t know where to go, because our community is tapped out.”
Milliken Community Food Pantry Coordinator Bill Selby, representing one of the Weld Food Bank’s 70 local partners, said he’s noticed much of the same trend, though on a smaller scale.
“Our numbers are not their numbers, but the pattern is the same,” Selby said. “We started out (in 2013) at six families every time we opened the door. In 2023, we averaged around 60 families. In 2024, we averaged 70 families. On Monday, we had 93 families.”
The discussion also touched on the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, has had by cutting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or SNAP — benefits. Roughly 615,000 people in Colorado are supported by SNAP benefits, Ron Meehan of Feeding Colorado said. More than half of those are children.
Feeding Colorado is the state association of Feeding America, and collaborates with five of the state’s largest food banks — Weld Food Bank, Food Bank for Larimer County, Food Bank of the Rockies, Food Bank for Southern Colorado and Community Food Share — to reach the most people possible.
Meehan said that for every meal his organization provides, SNAP accounts for nine meals. Part of the $6 million in cuts included basically the entirety of SNAP’s food education program, part of which helped low-income people learn to shop for and prepare healthy foods on a budget.
“This is an issue that’s on my radar, on my to-do list,” Weiser said. “We need to strengthen our nutritional safety net, not weaken it. A state that believes in affordability must fight hunger as part of that commitment.”
In a statement after the tour, Weiser highlighted his work to fight hunger as attorney general, including fighting the merger of Kroger and Albertsons as well as a 2023 settlement with Walmart for overcharging customers. As governor, Weiser would “support community-based and innovative solutions that bring healthy, locally grown foods to market and ensure communities have reliable access to them, especially in areas losing local grocery stores,” he said.
“Colorado already has promising initiatives leading the way, from the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition to Ranch Foods Direct, which connects small farmers and artisanal producers directly to consumers,” he said. “As governor, I’ll expand programs like the Community Food Consortium to strengthen local food systems, support small retailers, and make sure every Colorado family can put healthy, local food on the table.”
Weiser was elected attorney general in 2018 and reelected in 2022, before announcing a run for governor in January.
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