Food Is Foundation #2 Participatory Structures in Human Services

3330 Mariposa Street,Denver CO 80211

29 July, 2021

Description

Why is Community-Based Participatory design essential for human service organizations? Join us and Struggle of Love Foundation, Rocky Mountain Mutual Aid, Harm Reduction Action Center, and Boulder Food Rescue for our second installment of Food is Foundation a 2021 four part series presented by Denver Food Rescue (DFR). In our first event we asked DFR staff why should food be a foundation for political, economic, social, and environmental work? Now we move from theory to practice as we talk with Denver area organizations that excel at centering community in their social service programs. Inspired by Boulder Food Rescues' participation framework we hope this learning event "supports all nonprofits and other human service organizations to analyze their own systems and to better understand how they can become more participatory. We believe that as we all start including the voices of people most affected by our work in the work, access to services will increase, and ultimately, people will feel more affirmed and respected and will be better supported and resourced towards enacting community change. " --- Boulder Food Rescue's A Hand and a Voice Seats to this round table style learning event will be limited as we plan to gather safely in-person (social distancing, mask reciprocity) so please RSVP! Denver Food Rescue is a Denver nonprofit focused on improving health equity outcomes by increasing access to healthy foods in low income areas. We do this by redistributing edible produce from grocery stores, which would otherwise go to waste, directly to No Cost Grocery Programs. NCGPs are set up directly in neighborhood organizations such as community centers or after school programs. Community residents then help lead NCGPs and the neighborhood accesses the food once a week at no cost. Many NCGPs have cooking and nutrition classes to accompany the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Our hyper-local, resident-driven model allows us to reach hard-to-access populations, who might not otherwise take advantage of emergency food assistance.