Not your average food bank: Metro Caring addresses hunger at its root
Here's an inside look at Metro Caring's smart method to reduce hunger in Denver.
![Not your average food bank: Metro Caring addresses hunger at its root Not your average food bank: Metro Caring addresses hunger at its root](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt09e5e63517a16184/bltf664302135b218d7/64ff1f9e3719b391635dc86c/metrocaring_exterior.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
In 2016, Metro Caring fed 50,000 individuals through more than 2 million pounds of rescued and redistributed food. The organization is dedicated to treating people with respect and dignity.
Thirty-five percent of the food donated is fresh fruit and vegetables. Metro Caring posts nutrition tips, such as this one about eating fruit rather than drinking it, around the store.
The lion’s share of food provided through Metro Caring is donated. The organization works with retail food partners such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's to reclaim their soon-to-go bad produce and products.
Metro Caring’s greenhouse was donated by Nexus Corp. The greenhouse is primarily used for the organization’s cooking classes, garden education and to provide a small amount of produce to the store.
This is Jessica Harper, food access coordinator for Metro Caring. Jessica spends a lot of her time wrangling the organization’s many volunteers in the grocery warehouse.
Metro Caring is much more than a food bank, as the organization strives to understand and remedy why people need their services in the first place. To shop at the grocery store, each recipient is required to meet with a volunteer caseworker in these private rooms so Metro Caring can offer auxiliary services such as financial guidance, job training, or assistance with housing, education or health care.
Seventy-two percent of the food Metro Caring provides is fresh. Volunteers must go through shipments of produce to separate good, edible food from rotten food.
And there’s a lot of produce to sift through!
Nutrition is a key area of focus for Metro Caring, as the organization is devoted to providing high-quality, healthy food—not just empty calories. Here, children can learn main food groups through an interactive MyPlate diagram while their parents are shopping.
An educational flyer posted in the store outlines how Metro Caring handles donated food that is near or past expiry.
Metro Caring is designed to cover one week of food per month per recipient. There is no limit on what people can take, as the organization runs on the philosophy that people should take what they need.
Metro Caring is designed to cover one week of food per month per recipient. There is no limit on what people can take, as the organization runs on the philosophy that people should take what they need.
Why does hunger exist in the United States?
It isn't because there's not enough food to go around. It also isn't due to food deserts, areas of the country that lack in fresh fruit, vegetables and whole, healthful foods because there isn’t an easy-to-access grocery store. Rather, people go hungry in America due to poverty.
Food insecurity is strongly associated with income level. In a 2015 study, the USDA found that nearly two in five households that reported inconsistent access to food also had annual incomes that fell below federal poverty lines. Nationwide, the number of people who struggle with hunger and the number of people who live in poverty is the same: 1 in 8 Americans. While food deserts are certainly a problem and place more of an onus on corner stores, gas stations and bodegas to provide "groceries" (usually processed junk food), they aren’t a huge deal for people who are affluent enough to own a car. Food deserts start to become a big issue when people don’t have reliable transportation or reliable income to make grocery store runs. "When it comes to nutrition access, the focus should be on poverty, not grocery store location," Joe Cortright wrote in The Atlantic, citing a 2015 study summarized in Chicago Policy Review that found proximity to groceries only accounted for 10 percent of consumption disparities across education groups.
This all matters because food access is a complex problem with a complex solution, and it will take the work of businesses, retailers, farmers, lawmakers and particularly astute nonprofits to fix. One such nonprofit is Metro Caring, a Colorado-based organization that takes a holistic approach to addressing both the short-term urgency of feeding those who are hungry and solving the complicated issue of poverty in the Denver area.
On a recent summer evening, Judith Ackerman, business development and marketing officer of Metro Caring, took a group of natural products industry business leaders from the Denver/Boulder area on a tour of the facility, pointing out the unique programs that Metro Caring offers to promote food security. From healthy, free cooking classes to job training assistance to financial planning education, Metro Caring’s 21 staff members (and their passionate 2,000+ volunteers) are a collective of folks making systemic change one recipient at a time.
The cornerstone of Metro Caring’s approach is to treat each and every person that walks through its doors with respect. For example, recipients make an appointment to come in for food and meet with a volunteer caseworker in a private room before shopping. Caseworkers can provide recipients a variety of services apart from groceries—for example, helping obtain ID cards (Social Security, birth certificate, driver’s license) necessary for employment. “People feel this is a key point of differentiation because you’re treating people like people,” Ackerman says. “Our core value is to treat people with respect and dignity.” Ackerman adds that it’s a misconception that the organization is just feeding the homeless. Often, Metro Caring serves the working poor who find it difficult to make ends meet.
Metro Caring follows a radically more involved approach than traditional food banks, and one that must be emulated across the country in order to improve food access for good. Click through the following slideshow to see Metro Caring in action.
What: Expiration Education: Finding Solutions
When: 9:45 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017
Where: Sheraton at the Capitol, Austin, Texas
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