Health Safety Education and Services - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the health and safety committee with denver city council Coverage of the health and safety committee starts now

Good morning. Today is August 26th. This is the Health and Safety Committee meeting. My name is Darrell Watson. I'm honored to be the chair of this committee as well as a city council member representing all of the fine District 9. We have one briefing this morning, the Healthy Food for Denver Kids annual update. But before we go to the presentation, why don't we turn it over to city council members for brief introductions. We'll start on our right.

Good morning. Amanda Sandoval, Northwest Denver District 1.

Good morning. Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6. Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

And it looks like we've got some City Council members online. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver District 2. Thank you. And is President Romero-Campbell online as well? I see at this time. Well, with that, I'm very excited to turn it over to Laura Nile and Amber Stenson from our DDPHE department to introduce themselves and their guests at the table and turn over to presentation. Well, before we do that, we have another council member right on time.

Good morning, Flora Mitres with Lucky District 7.

Thanks, Councilwoman. I'll be there. So now I'll turn it over to Lauren and Amber to introduce yourselves and guests at your table. And if there are quotes in the audience that you'd like folks to know better here. And then I'll turn it over for your presentation.

Excellent. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Lauren Howe, she, her pronouns, Healthy Food for Denver's Kids program supervisor out of the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. I'll pass it over to Amber.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Amber Stenson. I'm the Grants Administrator at Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. She or her pronouns. Nice to be here with you all today.

Jason Torres, Executive Director of the Denver Inner City Parish.

Morning. Morgan Gregory, Deputy Director of Denver Inner City Parish.

Do you want to introduce any of your other friends in the audience?

We have our team, Genesis Crump, Jess Murison, Michaela Mullins, and Emma Welty, who are all on the Healthy Food for Denver's Kids team at DDPHE.

Well, thank you all for being here. And I want to welcome President Romero-Campbell. And then the floor is yours.

Excellent, thank you. So we like to start our DDPHE presentations by grounding everyone in our departmental public health framework. We know that healthy food access and food security are in and of themselves social determinants of health, but they're also very connected to other social determinants of health as well, including economic stability, education, healthcare, built environment, and community context. This work also fits squarely within DDBG's community health assessment work in the area of systemic racism, as well as various other departmental priorities. And we know the public health impacts of food security that are mental, physical, and community health. So this is an overview of what we're gonna be touching on during today's annual briefing. We're gonna give a quick recap of the current state of food insecurity in Denver before jumping into more background on the Healthy Food for Denver's Kids or HFDK program and commission. We'll share a bit about the impact and overview of the funding. We have a grantee spotlight. We have partners here from Denver Inner City Parish joining us to share a couple of minutes about what this work looks like in their community. Before I pass it over to Amber to talk about our seventh annual funding opportunity application process and contracts, we'll touch on financials and then briefly close out with some information on sunset. So in terms of food insecurity in Denver, in 2025, DDPHE ran a survey that reached over 3,000 Denverites across all 11 city council districts, and it asked folks, in the last year, did you or someone in your family have to cut the size of or skip a meal due to not having enough money for food? Those results showed that more than one in three, about 35% of Denverites said yes to that question and are food insecure. That includes about one in five children having meals cut or skipped and 68% of all survey respondents said food is too expensive as the number one barrier. We know that food insecurity is likely to continue to rise due to inflation, federal changes to SNAP and Medicaid, and overall decreases in funding available for food access work. And we know that this is an issue not only locally but nationally, and our city really has an opportunity to lead in this area. We know that healthy food is essential for all to thrive, and food insecurity is a clear indicator of our city's affordability crisis. Survey results from last year's data indicated that families are having to make tough economic trade-offs to afford food, so they are cutting paying for utilities, healthcare, transportation, or housing costs. And these trade-offs are having ripple effects on other areas. We know skipping medication can lead to worse health outcomes, and skipping rent might lead to housing instability. I wanted to share one quotation from our community partner Kaizen Food Rescue, that hunger is rarely caused by a lack of food alone. It's often the result of systems that make it difficult for people to access stability, dignity, and opportunity. So this is where Healthy Food for Denver's Kids, or HFDK, comes in to address food insecurity and food access at the local level. This program was established as a result of a resident-led ballot measure that Denver voters approved in 2018, created a small sales tax increase, 0.08%, or about a penny on a $10 purchase, and then established a special revenue fund for healthy food access and food education for Denver's youth. We started collecting funds in 2019 and we'll do so through the end of 2028 and all those funds will be spent down by the end of 2029. Those funds have to principally benefit Denver residents and no more than 10% can be used for city administration costs. So this initiative is really not only addressing child hunger today but building long-term health equity for Denver's most vulnerable youth. This is just an overview of the history of the program starting when voters approved the initiative and we've been doing annual funding opportunities since 2020. The commission really drives the funding strategy and the decision making of the program. So this is a mayoral appointed body of 13 members. And the Denver Vice Municipal Code really outlines the exact number of seats for membership. And so we are grateful. There are a lot of folks in this room. Our two current members, Councilman Flora Alvidrez and Councilmember Paul Cashman, Councilman Torres, Councilman Romero Campbell. We've had a lot of service on the commission from city councils. We're very grateful for that. leaders from the city, community members, and nonprofit participation on the commission as well. And this group typically meets every other month and members of the public are welcome to attend those meetings. DDPHE really provides the operational support for this initiative and implements commission guidance. So in terms of who's eligible for funding, nonprofits, public schools, including DPS and Denver City agencies can apply through competitive grant-making processes. Funded projects include healthy meals and snacks, hands-on food education like gardening and cooking classes, food distribution, whether that be mobile food markets or school food pantries, and then connections to federal food assistance programs like outreach and enrollment in SNAP and WIC. This is a snapshot of some of the organizations we are funding, so logos from our fourth, fifth, and sixth annual cohorts. I am excited to pass it over to one of our partners here today, Denver Inner City Parish, to share a concrete example of what this funding has meant for their organization and their community.

Cool. Oh, thank you. So yeah, my name is Jason Torres, again, Executive Director of the Denver Inner City Parish. And so we've been around since about 1960 as an organization. Our food pantry is the oldest food pantry, one of the oldest food pantries in Denver. And it's gone through many iterations. I remember at one time in the late 80s, early 90s, we were in a closet. at our building in 910 gallopego and so we've served hundreds a month during covid we were serving thousands per month and so it's had its iterations i will say that for hfdk and i'd like i like the slide about when families can't eat everything is impacted Because I feel like what HFDK did for food pantries like ours, the size of our food pantry, is it helped us create an ecosystem around the food pantry. Because then we were able, through the funding, able to provide more just beyond families going through our line and getting food. We were able to offer a healthy program, a health program. as a result of HFDK funding. We were able to offer an after school meal program, free healthy meal program for kids at schools in our community. So what happened was the HFDK funds, like I said, created an ecosystem around food pantries and that just wasn't us. It was many, many, many other food pantries around Denver and the impact on families is really great and it speaks to that. When families can't eat, everything is impacted. So when they come to us and get food, but they can also get other services. Care Navigation helps them enroll in SNAP. If they need energy assistance, sometimes even rental assistance. We've been able to offer rental assistance in the past. So those things revolve around the problem of food insecurity and HFDD funding helped us and many other food pantries create that ecosystem to support families in a real way. I will say Lauren asked us to talk about some anecdotal stories from families, and I want to give you my story. Because I grew up in Westwood, Denver, in Westwood Project Housing in Denver. And I remember when my mother would have to go to a food pantry, and it wasn't always the best. Now, this was a long time ago. It wasn't always the best thing, and she used to tell me sometimes it felt like she was being herded through a cattle run. And I will tell you that HFDK funding has helped change the model for how families feel. So people walk into these food pantries, not just ours, but many food pantries and feel like there's some dignity to what's happening to them. And the resources that our food pantries are getting as a result of HFTK are affording us the opportunity to give them that dignity. That when they walk in, it's not just food, it's like, what else do you need? Because we're here for you. So I want to stress that to you all, how important HFTK funding has been to food pantries like ours across Denver. Any...

I think Jason said it best, and I want to keep on track time. But I would just say that I had the honor of being a part of starting HFDK nine years ago. And seeing it come full circle and being here now and just sharing a little bit of our story. We're less than a mile away from right here. We've been doing this work for 70 years. HFDK has made us more dynamic than any other single entity over the course of our time.

Thank you both. I really appreciate it. They can tell the story way better than staff can, so I appreciate you being here. So we've invested in third-party evaluation support since the beginning of the initiative to try to really tell the story of some of the impact. This evaluation includes both analysis of grantee reports, which they submit on a semi-annual basis, as well as more of a city-wide kind of macro evaluation that involves some GIS mapping and other ways to kind of track how our funding is intersecting and resourcing grantee work and what that looks like at a city-wide level. Both our evaluation partner and our program staff provide technical assistance to our grantee partners, including through webinars, office hours, and in-person workshops and gatherings. So just a little bit about the numbers. DICP was one great example, and when we zoom out and look at the collective impact, over $100 million has been invested in more than 118 organizations since 2020. Collectively, those partners serve about 100,000 Denver families each year, and over 90% of the fund goes straight to kids. This data shows that over the first five years of the initiative, our partners have served almost 50 million meals and snacks. They have created over 850 new youth jobs and delivered almost 50,000 total hours of food and nutrition education instruction. And the impact isn't just felt through those numbers, but also in the communities and residents saying what the funds have meant to them. So in last year's client level data, 79% of HFDK clients reported knowing more about healthy eating. 92% consumed more vegetables because of the program. And a staggering 99% said that this program helped reduce their worry about where their next meal would come from. Um, so I am going to, um, close out my portion by just sharing a little bit about our current priorities. So we're always in the funding, uh, kind of annual funding cycle. So right now we're working on oh seven contracting, which Amber will talk more about. Um, and we're also getting ready to plan and release our eighth annual RFP, which is set to come out later this year. Our technical assistance continues to focus on nutrition quality and cultural foods, as well as ensuring our partners are able to provide language access resources to their community members. We're working on various impact storytelling projects as well as PR campaign communications activities to really just help spread the word about the impact of this initiative to a broader audience. And then we have another exciting project happening with our evaluator to try to quantify some of that economic value of this investment. So at this point, I will hand it over to Amber to talk more about contracting. Great.

Good morning again. Amber Stenson, Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. I'm the grants administrator there. And as Lauren said, I'm going to start with talking a little bit about our HFDK 07 application and selection process. Then I'll talk through some of our overall program financials with revenue and grants awarded to date. And then I will close out by touching on HFDK sunset and reauthorization. So starting with our HFDK 07 application process, this was our seventh large funding round, hence the HFDK 07. Similar to years past, we had a two-step application process with a letter of interest, LOI, followed by a by invite only request for proposals, RFP. In terms of number of applications we received, we received 38 letters of interest, and then we invited 22 of those applicants to apply for the full RFP, and all of those applicants did apply. A few things about our application process we did to promote equity is we provided technical assistance from a contracted grant writing expert at no cost to applicants for any applicant at both the LOI and the RFP stage of the process who requested that assistance. We also, as a staff team, redacted the applications at both the LOI and RFP stage so that reviewers could focus on the content of the application and not any outside information they might have about the organization. And we did that at both the LOI and RFP stage. At both the LOI and RFP stage of the application, we used review committees. They were comprised of HFDK commission members as well as community reviewers. Reviewers scored applications independently based on our established scoring criteria that was published in our RFP document. And then we held reconciliation meetings for reviewers to discuss the applications and scores. At the LOI phase, the applications with the highest average scores were recommended to move forward to the full RFP. And then at the RFP phase, applications with the highest average scores were recommended for funding. The HFDK Commission voted to approve all 12 of the applications that were recommended for funding by the review committee. And they voted to approve that on May 29th. And all of those applications were voted to be approved with full funding based on what the applicants had requested. We are currently in the contracting phase with 11 contracts since one organization actually closed between when it was recommended for funding and when our contracting process began. So this slide shows the organizations with the 11 contracts that I mentioned that are in process for our HFDK 07 funding cohort. I'll give you a second just to look at this list of organizations. The ones that are above 700, the ones that are above, excuse me, 500,000, which there's seven of those, will be coming to city council for approval once they move through our internal approval process and are signed by the vendors. So getting into HFDK revenue overall, this slide shows just an overall picture of our HFDK revenue from the initiation of the collection of the sales tax, which happened in 2019, through projected revenue for 2026 and 2027. We're sharing projections through the end of 2027 because that's the last year we have our projection from our budget management office, BMO. Overall, I think the big take-home point here is that HFDK revenue continues to be stable with modest growth projected for 2026 and 2027. Looking at the overall picture throughout the years of HFDK revenue, a lot of this mirrors general trends unsurprisingly with city revenue. The program experienced a small dip after initiation in 2020 related to COVID and economic effects of that. There was a strong rebound in 2021 with an increase of about 22%. And since 2021, revenue has grown every year with stronger growth in 2022 and 2023. And then since 2024, revenue has continued to grow, but at a slower rate. So between 2023 and 2024, we saw a 2% increase. And between 2024 and 2025, we saw 0.87%. So just less than 1% increase. So that echoes overall trends with flat city revenue. For 2026 and 2027, I've included our current BMO projections up here, which BMO staff always ask me to remind everyone these are projections and subject to change throughout the year. But currently, they are projecting a 2% increase for 2026 over 2025 and then year over year growth of 3.9% for 2027. So looking at our grants awarded, this is the whole picture for the whole program of HFDK. Since 2019, HFDK has completed seven large funding rounds and four rounds of micro grants. We've granted out in total between all of those things, the large funding rounds and micro grants, just about 115, just under $115 million in a total of 202 awards. We did not process contracts extensions this year since we now do multi-year contracts. They're typically three years for every grantee and so those do not require annual extensions. So something to point out is that our HFDK 04, HFDK 05, and HFDK 06 contracts are ongoing. On average, HFDK grants out around $10 to $15 million per cohort. And again, as I mentioned, there are three-year contract terms with no renewals at this time. That results in about $3 to $5 million allocated per cohort per year. As you can see, we've included our HFDK 07, our most recent funding cohort up here with those 11 contracts that are in process and those total just over $6.5 million for those 11 contracts. I wanted to clarify here too that when we see general as the focus area, what's meant by that is that that HFDK funding cohort focuses on our three HFDK funding priorities, and those priorities are food access, food assistance, which means increasing participation in federal nutrition assistance programs like SNAP and WIC, and then the third priority is food and nutrition education. I also wanted to share that with our microgrants, HFDK has used microgrants in the past to issue smaller grant awards to be responsive to community needs. And we also use this as a tool to ensure our funds are accessible to smaller organizations. And we've given out more than $2 million overall in microgrants since 2020. I wanted to also just get a little bit into the difference we see between our overall revenue and our overall grants awarded to date. The difference between those is about $23.3 million and I wanted to talk a little bit about how that is broken down. So in that, we have about $7.5 million for administration. As Lauren mentioned, per the ordinance, we are allowed up to 10% of total revenues for administration. And within those costs, that's our staff team, HFDK staff team at DDPHE. That also includes our evaluation consultant that Lauren mentioned, and all their smaller administrative costs like technology and office supplies and mileage. So those costs include actual expenses, 2019 to 2025, as well as projected amounts through the end of 2026 and for 2027. This amount also includes $4.4 million in unspent emergency or contingency funds for 2020 through 2027. With those emergency and contingency funds starting in 2020, 5% of annual revenue has been set aside to be used in case of emergency or gaps in necessary funding. And any funds that are not used in this area can be rolled back into our general pool of money for our regular RFP process. We also have $11.4 million as part of this $23 million difference that we are planning to set aside for our HFDK 08, our next funding cohort, which we are already planning, as well as possibly for future microgrants. HFDK 08, as we say, is already in the planning process and we would plan to start contracts for that in August of 2027. And we anticipate that we will be able to add more funding to this bucket as we receive our 2028 revenue projection. Okay, so last but not least, I wanted to touch on HFDK sunset and reauthorization. Without reauthorization, per the current ordinance, if not renewed, HFDK would cease collecting sales tax revenue at the end of December 2028. And then again, if not reauthorized, all funds would need to be spent down by the end of December 2029, one year later. Discussions about the future of HFDK and ballot measure referral are currently being held by various community stakeholders, including through the Food Justice Summit that is coming up this Friday. Great, I think that's all we have and Lauren and I have our contact information up here and we are available for questions.

First, thank you all for the good work that you do. And thank you to the nonprofits for really sharing your personal stories as to the impacts to you individually and the collective impact to the communities that you serve. Extremely important. Before we roll into the queue, I'd like to welcome Pro Tem Gonzalez Gutierrez. And I will list the queue in here first. Kicking off our queue, Councilmember Floral Vidres and then Councilmember Torres and then Council President Romero-Campbell.

Thank you, committee chair. Thank you all for the presentation. It's been an honor to serve and get to know some of the organizations that are receiving funds. I was able to also visit the inner city parish. We did sponsor some child programming. One of our residents that's there informed me that a lot of kids from District 7 end up over there for summer programming for food access. really grateful for that. One of my questions is kind of to part one for the provider side and then from the city side perspective, but what I've heard from providers is that although this funding is great, there is room for improvement whether it's red tape or Also, I've heard complaints on how the SNAP donations were handled. Did that get fast enough to the people that need it? I'm curious about that and also just accessing healthy foods. And then how restrictive is it that it has to be to a child? Because what I'm hearing is that there's older adults that are suffering from food insecurity. And when you're providing food to a child, how is that helping? the parents because ultimately everyone needs access to food. So I'm curious just from the provider perspective and then from the city perspective, what are you hearing from providers? What do you see where you're restricted that you would like to see maybe change to allow us to serve better?

So I can't speak to SNAP for the organization. I was on a health sabbatical during that time. Ruben was acting director, so maybe he can speak to that. But I can speak to the idea that is the funds restrictive to kids and families? In some manner, yes, we do. We, in addition to our food pantry being 1 of the longest running programs, our seniors program is our other long, long running program and we acquire funds to feed them through Dr cog. So that we can do food box deliveries and stuff like that with them. It would be nice if there was. less restriction to feed the whole of the community right from children to seniors in some capacity because it's a need you know food insecurity doesn't just exist with parents and children It exists with our seniors, and we see it daily when our parents come in, excuse me, when our seniors come in for activities. And so, yeah, there's food insecurity with them. On top of that, some of our seniors are taking care of their children's kids, and that's just an honest reality of... of the social situation of community right so yeah is there some could there be less restriction probably yes but we've also organizations like ours try to address the whole of the community around food insecurity in some manner so

That's helpful. And I think I wish there was a Denver and New City Parish in every neighborhood. But yeah, I'd love to hear from you about how you felt, you know, when we stepped in, when the SNAP benefits were lost, like what could have gone differently? What went well?

I'm an optimist and I thought it went really well. Sure, there was room for improvement, but I don't think I could sit here and tell you that's my overall feeling. I thought it happened quickly and without much red tape. I was really pleased. I would say that's been my experience with HFTK overall, that this is one of the most simple grants for us to manage. And the team has been incredible. I'm not just saying that because they're in the room, but the red tape is minimal. And yeah, to echo what Jason said, I remember when we were creating HFDK, and there's a reason that K is there, and that's because we weren't Sure, that it would pass on the ballot if we didn't put the K there. I wish it could include seniors as well. And if we can make that happen, then it would definitely be improved.

But let me echo that admin has been awesome. Like, we're not the only food pantry that has access to them. Call Lauren call Jess, anybody, you know, like, every food pantry has, I would say the same experience. So.

Yeah and I would say that's been my what I've heard as well but it's not a frustration definitely not with any of that amazing staff and their willingness to do things. I think one of the things that is confusing as a council member even is when that happened it was like drop stuff off at Afmar Park Rec Center which was right by Community Ministries which also gets food from Southwest Food Coalition which is dependent on now the Denver Rescue Mission getting the donations And so there was a confusion in community. Do I go to the rec center? Do I go to community ministries? Like, how do I access the food that I need? So that's what just District 7 on the west side, what I heard. And as a council member, it was like, where do I tell people exactly to take food and donations? Because community ministries or Southwest Food Coalition are like, we need the money. And then we're being told to direct people to the Denver Rescue Mission and then We have also the amazing organization Servicios de la Raza, which has come down to the Athmar Park Rec Center to give out food, and that's where the donations were being received. So just from the District 7 micro, tiny view of my little part of Denver, that was kind of what was experienced. And I think there's still confusion of what is the best? Because I think sometimes filtering to the largest organization doesn't feel as immediately responsive to the organizations that are there every day. Community Ministries is an amazing organization. I love that what you said, they have like basically a grocery store where people have dignity and can go choose food. I remember going to a food pantry as a child and It was like we didn't get healthy foods or fresh foods like HDFDK allows you to get. And it was just like this box warehouse where everything was generic and we weren't sure everything that we were getting. totally relate to that, but I would love to hear from you all. Yes, I agree. Like you are doing amazing work and HDFDK is much more flexible. I think you are correct. Like we are leading the nation and like, how do we address this? But where would you like to see more flexibility to do your jobs and get to the root of the people that need it the most in the most efficient and best way?

I'll just say to echo what Jason and Ruben just shared, information that partners have shared with us, and this is not me taking a stand on like recommending changes to the program, but just that, yeah, the focus on children can feel restrictive if there are older adults in the house or people that need food access that don't have kids at all. And so I think that's a very real reality. I think a bigger challenge that is hard for us to solve at the hyper local level is that we know food insecurity doesn't stop at municipal borders. And we know families have to travel to different places to access resources. And so I think that's just an inherent challenge to something that is so local. And just as a follow up, I'm happy to share with you the DDPHE food team did quite an extensive kind of reflection after the whole SNAP crisis to figure out what can we do differently to better support community, to make things feel clearer and less confusing. And so I'm happy to share that SNAP after action report, as well as a food resiliency plan we've been working on as well to try to get ahead of future crises.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that's another thing that has been on my mind with the drought and with rising food costs. I think that's why we are also seeing higher levels of food insecurity. Like everything at the grocery store is more expensive. So people are definitely thinking about that. And with climate change, it's a huge concern. So I'd love and I think the whole council and the whole committee would love to see that information. Thank you so much for all the work that you all are doing.

Can I add to that? Yeah. Yeah, I would say HFTK is one of, given the food costs and drought and issues that come with food, with the food system, HFTK has been one of the only places that food pantries like ours can hedge against higher prices for food. Because the reality is is that food pantries like us have to buy our food too. And the Food Bank of the Rockies and all these places are great, but when we want healthy food, we have to purchase it even from them and other places. So HFTK has been very good in that for food pantries like us so that we can offer calabacitas to our families and beans and those kinds of things. It's been very good for us. And again, it hedges against the prices that we have to pay at those places.

Great questions and lots of great information. So thank you for sharing that with the whole committee. We'll make sure all council members receive that as well. Council Member Torres. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. You guys know how much I love and appreciate AJ Fetiquier. I think you've changed the landscape for how all of our providers and our nonprofits when are able to respond, but are also connected to each other. Creating that network is one of the things that when you're a nonprofit, you can only focus on the thing that you have to do today, the grant that you have to go after, creating a relationship. with other partners in your vicinity is the long-term work that you just, it's harder to do. And so I appreciate that HFDK has kind of filled that networking role and created a lot of those linkages that just didn't exist before because who has time? So thank you for doing that and for putting so much into that. Your valuation side is really great and really able to demonstrate here's the money that's come in and here's the outcome that we're seeing. I just want to shout out Inner City Parish. You and I think others, when we went through the pandemic, also re-envisioned how can we do food pantry differently and created this mobile model that I hear people talk about all the time now, right? And how do we take something that we were forced to think about differently and make it like our normal way of getting food to people who can't get to us. So I thank you for being really innovative in that way. One of the things that I want to understand, you mentioned reauthorization. I know that's a big part of a lot of our work across the city is trying to get through reauthorization next year. How much would you say is requested versus the 17 or so million or 11 I think that you mentioned on the slide that gets granted out? What's the difference between what might be requested or needed and what we have the capacity to distribute?

I have a chart I can follow up with after to counsel if that's helpful because we've done that analysis.

We can add specifically for the 07 cohort. We can add for all the grantees what was the ask and then...

I think that's really helpful because I think there's a level where we know we're not meeting the whole actual need out there. Even if we're not counting the limited population that we've got to serve under the ballot measure language. But I think there's another level of this of What else would these organizations be able to utilize, even serving kids? And then you talk about who are the other populations that we might need to think about under reauthorization. The other piece is you just add 30-some percent of how much groceries have gone up since 2019 when this was created, and there's 1% right there that this has to go up to. So there are assumptions and then there's some data that we can base some of that decision-making off of, but I think it really is trying to appeal to folks that this isn't just trying to keep up. This is also trying to plug a future hole because families are going to be losing SNAP benefits because they're pushed off of the rolls. They're going to lose access to the dollars that get them groceries one time a month and their reliance on you all is going to become that much greater. And when we have SNAP benefits, that money goes straight into grocery stores. This is the disconnect that is so crazy for me to understand at the federal level why they would want to shortcut families in that way. So just a huge thank you to all of you standing in this space. seeing families every day that need you and being able to meet their need. Thank you also for pivoting to microgrants. I remember when that came up initially and you're just able to pivot and think really creatively about how do we utilize these in a way that's needed today. Because I remember getting calls from you around, we want to serve the influx of migrants, but we need like We need some actual dollars to be able to do that well and still serve the people that have been coming to us for years. So just it's a huge success story. And we want to be able to demonstrate that to voters when we go back out to keep it going. So thank you all.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Torres. I'm wondering, would you be willing to share a little bit about the Food Justice Summit that's coming up?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks to all the DDPHE partners for really digging in and helping organize it. So this is, I think, our way of keeping the conversation relevant of why Denver still needs a food justice fund. We've been advocating for that on council for the past three years, that we need a fund that helps build your capacity, right? How do we help make sure that you have a walk-in refrigerator where you're able to keep food fresh so that you're not pressured to distribute on the day that you receive it, right? That there is an actual system that can be built out that trucks and mobilization is able to happen in between all of these folks. And so the summit was our way of saying, okay, we need to make sure that everyone's on the same page. and hear from our partners who are out in community on what they're experiencing, what they're seeing as needs, what they're seeing as successes, because we know there are so many different things that are going to be happening, not just thinking about reauthorization. There are so many federal implications that affect food. You said it perfectly. If you're food insecure, everything about the decisions that you make economically and socially are also insecure. So I want to That I think is the premise for the summit is getting all of our partners out there to inform all of us, the mayor's office, the mayor himself and make sure that we're marching in the same direction and we have the same kind of portrait of what's happening in Denver right now because everything hinges on people being able to access and make a good decision when it comes to this. I know my colleague here advocates for Denver being a child-friendly city. One in five of our kids has a difficult time getting a meal, we are not a child friendly city. So everything is related to this. I think this is the hub and everything is spoked off of this. So that's what I think we wanna make sure is shared and strategized at the food summit.

Thank you, Councilmember Torres, and thank you for your leadership in co-creating this entire process. I mean, this really was amazing work that you've led, and so greatly appreciate it. Obviously, everyone around the table and the folks in the audience were part of that co-creation, but you led that, so I appreciate you. Council President Romero-Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, thank you for the presentation. I think that it's inspiring to hear about where you've, you know, where you started and where you're going. I do have a few questions and also I just want to say really excited about the Food Justice Summit. I think that is going to be really key in laying the groundwork and I think a snapshot of where we now and how are we going to respond moving forward. I have two questions. One, in the list of the grants as they've come through, I know early on there was a focus on, I think, access for early childhood and for SNAP and WIC. And is that something that you are hearing from community coming up again with the federal cuts that have been seen? And do you have plans to do some more targeted funding in that area?

Yeah, great question. So our third annual funding round was focused on kind of zero to five age and a little bit more of an explicit focus on federal food assistance. And I think that came out of lessons learned from the first two rounds of funding of, oh, maybe that early childhood demographic is something that we are have an opportunity to grow in our reach in. And then I think data later revealed, like, That went great. Our grantees reported serving more kiddos ages 0 to 5, which was wonderful. I'd have to double check the data, but I think at this point it's a little more equitably distributed across age groups. So we have pretty, you know, across ECE, elementary, high school, fairly good spread. And so I think at this point we don't have immediate plans to have kind of an age group specific funding opportunity. opportunity, though we're always welcome feedback and thoughts from community and partners. And as far as federal programs, that's obviously been a tricky one because of all the changes happening at the federal level with SNAP and Medicaid and how that's impacting our community locally. But I think our strategy there has been to continue to have an openness to funding those outreach and enrollment activities. If a partner has a great plan of We want to increase reach in our neighborhood and here's how we're going to do it. We want to resource that work and at the same time recognize it's just probably going to get even more challenging with changes to public charge and increased fear among community members to even try to access those federal supports. So we know that that data is probably just going to go down naturally, but we're still willing to fund it if someone comes to us with like a really strong proposal to do that work.

Thank you. I have another question around, and I don't remember what slide it was on, but you had the map where you showed geographically where the funding is going in pockets and neighborhoods and so forth. And I just commend you because I think even a few years ago, that map was not as robust as it is now. And so that outreach effort to really think about what is that need across the city and I will just speak specifically for, you know, Southeast Denver. We do have a nest neighborhood. There's funding that goes directly into some programs there. But the schools that are identified, those are feeder schools where those children go. And so being able to have the Healthy Foods for Denver Kids resources at those surrounding schools have just been tremendously important because we don't have in Southeast Denver, a high number of food banks that are serving community. And so, you know, we have one major one that's a big hub, but really just trying to find where those resources are and distance and proximity and access has been, I think, our greatest struggle. So I just appreciate that you are continuing to look citywide for where those resources go, knowing that we have food insecurity in all parts of our city. The last question is around the capacity building for the grants. And I know that there was a section in there. Sorry, I was listening. I wasn't writing down all of the components. But there's a section in there where you're talking about really looking at building the capacity for those nonprofits to be able to be prepared. And that you continue to do that. Have you found that those blind review processes have been helpful? And I don't know who to direct this to. Maybe it's to, you know, a nonprofit, but I'm just wondering what that feedback has been from those nonprofits. One in the capacity building, but also how those grants are being distributed with kind of the. I don't know what the right term would be, the blind process of taking out the specific information, leveling the playing field.

Yeah, so after each one of our funding cohorts is completed, we collect feedback. We have a survey we send out to applicants. We also collect feedback from all of our reviewers. We talk with our HFDK commission, some of whom also participate in the reviews. And I would say at this point, the feedback on the redactions is mixed. I think some people have found that it can make perhaps the applications just a little hard to follow, or some people have felt, oh, we can still kind of guess and tell who different applicants are. So it is something we're reevaluating for the future of, is this something that makes sense to continue? Some people do strongly feel, though, that it does reduce bias in the process. So appreciate that. So we are looking at that one. In terms of the technical assistance we're providing on grant writing right now, that looks like we have a grant writing consultant who our letter of interest applicants or RFP applicants can contact that person and she will review their application at no cost to them. We pay for that and provide feedback on the application. So that idea is that, you know, for probably smaller organizations who might have less professional grant writing capacity to level the playing field somewhat in terms of getting access to a grant writing expert and getting feedback on their application. Again, we're gonna look at that again for this year. We're looking around to make sure that that process is effective and helpful. And we may tweak the timing or change some aspects of that, but generally we've found with our in terms of feedback from applicants that that is a service that was appreciated by grantees.

Thank you. Just thank you for continuing to consider it and innovate and kind of, what is it, a learning process so that you're continuously learning from those interventions. I know from a nonprofit perspective that makes a big difference.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. chair.

Thank you.

Did you have a sorry? Go ahead. Yeah, I don't know what you meant by capacity building. I took it as, you know, for, for us as a food patch, we've been able to build out a lot of capacity for to do mobile pantries. Like Jamie said, things like that. The trick is, and it has nothing to do with is that in the, in the financial world of the nonprofit, being able to maintain that capacity is a struggle, especially, I would say, for food system organizations, because. grocery stores and people who give to food give to the big regional food banks. And so those regional food banks, they do a great job and stuff that they do, but it leaves little for us outside of funding initiatives like this. And so to maintain that capacity, it is tough, I would say.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Council President. Council Member Cashman. Thank you, Committee Chair.

Thanks for what you're doing. Good on you. Good on you. Good on you. It's, you know, one of your earlier slides, $115 million in the first seven years, I think, that frees up $115 million to, as your slide points out, whether it's to feed seniors, whether it's to pay rent, et cetera, et cetera, it just multiplies and multiplies throughout the community. It's such an honor to be a tiny part of your effort and it just amazes me at the board meetings I've attended, not just listening to the incredible work you and the entire staff do, but hearing the providers that you are funding, whether it's your group or the hundreds of others, how it has just enabled you to expand service into the community. Two of the main ones in District 6, the Love Project, L-O-V-V-E, they're centered in the Virginia Village community, and they started serving a couple hundred families at Ellis Elementary. But with the addition of your funding, they've been able to expand. They've served McMeen Elementary. They've recently expanded to Place Bridge Academy. All three of these schools serving a great number of families in need. And I so appreciate that. You know, I also wanted to It's such a big family that is serving food insecurity in Denver, you know, besides the ones that you serve. We have a new, the city council has a new series being filmed, Counseling the Community. Mine, I interviewed a couple that has a sunny bug farm named after their late daughter. They produce four, five, 600 pounds of food a year that go to local food banks. And again, some of that gets directed at kids, some of it gets directed at seniors, and so on. Love is in the early stages of adding a community fridge at Salem United Church of Christ that will be available 24-7 where people can go and access healthy foods for their families. So thank you to all of you. It couldn't be more supportive of the reauthorization. It is absolutely essential.

Thank you, committee chair. Thank you so much, Councilmember Cashman. Just wanted to look around the room to see if there are any other questions from Councilmembers. And seeing none, 100% supportive of the reauthorization. And really, thank you and your teams for the good work you do in service of our communities. I wanted to ask just two questions. First on kind of what I'm referring to as a cliff. So for your funding cycles, you provide, I believe I heard correctly for HFDK, it's three-year cycles without the reauthorization that terminates itself. But as we expect, my hope is that reauthorization occurs. When a community organization goes through that three-year cycle, Is there a time period before they can reapply again? And is there kind of a capacity building as you're coming to the end of that cliff or the beginning of that cliff for application?

Yeah, in general, once you're correct, it's a three-year funding cycle that we're generally going through with HFDK. And any organization that is a lead agency on one of those grants is not allowed to apply for another grant while their three-year cycle is active. though many of those grantees might be subrecipients on other organizations' grantees. There's a lot of partnerships that happen in the web of the food world in Denver. But once that grant cycle has come to an end, they can apply for the next three-year funding.

Okay, so it's just during that three-year cycle.

Yeah, it's just during that cycle that their lead agency would not be allowed to apply. Okay. And then in terms of capacity building at the end, do you want to speak to that?

Yeah, I'll just shout out to Michaela, one of our program associates.

Who's Michaela? Hey, Michaela.

Leads a really robust grantee technical assistance and support program with NHFDK and is constantly doing one-on-ones with grantees, hosting convenings on broadcasts. roughly a quarterly basis to bring our partners together to Councilman Torres's point about building out this network. And I think that that TA has made a really big difference for a lot of our partners and just helping to build up their capacity throughout their three-year contract. So there's not like specifically kind of extra support added at the end, but we try to have conversations with partners around, okay, like, you know, the grant is wrapping up. Do you have thoughts on, you know, what your next steps look like? Just, you know, to support as we can, but I think we provide pretty robust TA through throughout the life cycle of the grant.

That is awesome. That's good to hear. I was hoping that you would elevate that process specifically to the food team for DDPHE. What's the size of your food team? How many folks are in that group as we refer to official unofficially food team?

Yeah, so we have, I'm sure my math is correct, three on the healthy food for kids team on the program side on the food team. I believe it's seven FTE that work on the food team.

Seven FTEs. I'm seeing head shakes. Seven FTEs. We're in budget season, and so I want to provide an opportunity for you to share a little bit as to what's the importance of maintaining that food team within DDPHE, not only as a response to a dysfunctional federal government, but also combating food insecurity long term.

Without going into the details or saying too much, I think it's critical. The team has been able to do really good work, especially in the last year, just around resiliency planning and planning for future crises and emergencies and obviously continuing to work on the Healthy Food for Kids program. And so I would say any budget resources that can continue to resource the work of the team are grateful for.

Well, you happen to be speaking to some folks that have some involvement with the budget, so I wanted to give you that opportunity. I wanted to share, Councilmember Torres, if you didn't mind that the food summit is August 28th. It's from 1 to 4 p.m. It will be at the Westwood Community Center, 1000 South Lowell Boulevard. A really frank discussion led by community integrated within folks from the city and I think folks in administration will be there encouraging folks to come and listen. And Councilmember Torres?

Yeah, I'll just say I think the audience are folks that are in the network and there'll be a follow-up event that maybe general public would want to be able to participate in.

That's excellent. And so with that, thank you all so much for being here. We have how many items? one item on consent and that has not been pulled off so with that we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.