Update: Monday, March 16, 2020
Hi BFR Community,
First and foremost, we hope everybody is doing what they need to in order to stay healthy and take care of yourselves and your families. We also want to thank everyone who has reached out and offered support. Now is the time more than ever that we need to continue to rely on each other and offer mutual aid.
BFR has been doing community-led resiliency work for a long time – the current crisis only exemplifies why community-led healthy food access is so important. As things progress, we expect our work of going into communities to distribute food will be more and more necessary. The infrastructure we have in place already allows us to bring food to people who are immobile and vulnerable. In order to continue getting healthy food to people who need it most, we need your help. Here are the ways you can support BFR currently:
- Donate Financially: These funds will go directly to supporting new logistics and the work on the front line over the next few months. In order to be effective and strategic (especially as things continue to escalate), we need to raise $45,000. Funds will go to:
- Supplies needed to ensure the safety and hygiene of the communities we serve within our No Cost Grocery Programs
- Logistics coordination and materials needed for rerouting food
- Supporting Grocery Program Coordinators to create new community-driven models that distribute food to individuals homes
- Rapid Response team who covers emergency shifts
- Volunteer: If you are able-bodied and less vulnerable, please help support on an ongoing or one-time basis. We need help with BFR shifts and will do the training online. We also need help delivering sanitization supplies which can be one-time. To volunteer, please email [email protected]
- Donate supplies: These are obviously in short stock, but if you have more than you need, you can donate any of these supplies by dropping them off at a drop box directly at our office, located at 5749 Arapaho Ave, Boulder, CO 80303.
Supplies needed:
-
- Hand Sanitizer
- Soap
- Plastic bags / reusable grocery bags
- Gloves
- Toilet paper
- Share this information: This is for everyone whether you can give or not! Helping to spread the word will help us raise what we need. Can you please share this email and our posts on Facebook and Instagram?
If you want to donate canned goods, please drop them directly with our partner who is creating emergency food boxes:
- EFAA: 1575 Yarmouth Ave. Boulder, CO 80304
The community work at Boulder Food Rescue has and always will focus on health equity and mutual aid. Now more than ever we are committed to making sure that those with fewer resources are not more at risk. This food justice movement is about inclusiveness and remembering that our community goes beyond the people we directly know. Community includes our elders, our sick and immobile, our wage-workers, our undocumented people, our LGBTQ population, and everyone more vulnerable to the immediate impact of this pandemic. If some folks have access to food, we should all have access to food. Boulder Food Rescue will ensure that happens.
Some folks have already been laid off. As this pandemic progresses, more and more people will be out their jobs and experiencing economic insecurity. We know that food insecurity is a direct result of economic insecurity. The more that we can band together in mutual aid now, the better equipped we will be as we get through this.
On behalf of the Boulder Food Rescue Staff, Volunteers, Participants and general community,
Thank you!