Partner: Hunger Free Colorado
Group Members: Taylor Jones, Logan Newbold, Sarah Thorson, Emma Welty
According to Hunger Free Colorado, an estimated 30% of Coloradans are experiencing some form of hunger. At the same time, small and medium sized farmers in the state are being left behind in the responses to COVID-19. This project will evaluate the efficacy of the Food Pantry Assistance Grant (FPAG), a state-funded program working to address these food system issues by incentivizing procurement from Colorado food producers via financial and technical assistance to food pantries. MENV students聽will conduct surveys and interviews of participants and run comparative analyses of each round of funding (FY18-19, FY19-20, and FY20-21) to produce four deliverables: an economic analysis, a healthy foods survey, a communications plan (including a StoryMap), and a white paper. With these separate but related deliverables, the team聽will paint a comprehensive picture of the various successes and shortfalls of the FPAG and make recommendations for the future of the program and Colorado鈥檚 emergency food system. This evaluation is based upon recommendations put forth in the 2019 Farm to Food Pantry Report, which evaluated the grant after the first year of funding, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.