Harvest for Hunger to open new Aspen food distribution location

Harvest for Hunger will be opening a new food distribution center in Aspen, available 40-hours a week to anyone. 

Harvest for Hunger is a charitable organization that got its start in Snowmass Village with its first food pantry that both reduces unnecessary food waste and mitigates food insecurity in the Roaring Fork Valley.

The Snowmass location has 1,200 visits per month on average. The organization is expecting that this new location will be a large step forward to limiting and eliminating food insecurity and food waste in the valley, according to Harvest for Hunger Executive Director Gray Warr.  

The new pantry, currently operated by 24 volunteers, will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and will take food from local organizations, markets, restaurants, and hotels up and down the valley. 

“So we rescue from somewhere around 18 different locations,” said Warr. “City Market Snowmass, City Market Aspen, Carbondale, El Jebel, Clark’s Market Aspen and Snowmass, Roxy’s market, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Paradise Bakery, Louis Swiss bakery …” 

The Snowmass food pantry and the new one in Aspen both operate on a model where individuals are able to take food from the pantry without interacting with staff of any kind. 

“It is a stigma-free model, which means that … you don’t sign in,” said Samuel Landerscaper, assistant director of Strategy and Operations. “They don’t collect any personal identification information. There is no staff on-site. The pantry is restocked by volunteers. They’re trying to have volunteers not interfere with the customers in any way.” 

The goal of reducing or eliminating interactions with others is to enable individuals who are using the program to stay private. 

There are no qualifications that need to be proven in order to use the pantry. 

Landerscaper, who wrote his capstone project for his master’s degree at Johns Hopkins on food insecurity, also noted how important addressing malnutrition is, not just because of the relatively obvious benefit of helping people not feel hungry. 

“It’s not just making sure that people have the food they need,” he said. “It also helps kids do better in school. It can decrease developmental disabilities if a mother is pregnant and food insecure at the time — that’s a lifelong impact. It reduces levels of domestic violence. It reduces levels of crime related to being in poverty.”

The new food pantry opens 8 a.m., Monday, June 9.