In this issue:

  Denver SFPC & HFDK Meetings · Tasty Food · Native Grown & Gathered · Clayton Cares Market · Denver Urban Garden’s · CO Fresh Farms Safeguarding Your Org · Immigrant Support Toolkit · USDA Resource · Grants & Funding Opportunities

Join the HFDK Commission meeting on Friday, March 21 from 10:00am – 12:00pm to learn more about urban agriculture and land access work from Food in Communities (FIC) and the Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency (CASR) office.

Learn more about the HFDK Commission

Attendees must register in advance for this meeting.

Link to register

If you work with or serve families who speak any of these languages, we encourage you to share the flyers for Tasty Food’s FREE after-school meal program. Our goal is to ensure that all youth and their families are aware of this valuable resource, no matter what language they speak.

Just a reminder: Tasty Food provides FREE after-school meals for youth ages 3-18 throughout the City and County of Denver. No registration or ID is required, and the program runs until May 23, 2025.

The Clayton Cares Market, a no-cost grocery store, on the Clayton Early Learning Denver campus provides healthy and nutritious food options for qualifying families. Established in 2022, the market offers fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat to support the well-being of the community.

This initiative, partially funded by Healthy Food for Denver’s Kids, aims to bridge the food gap for families in east Denver, ensuring access to essential resources.

Watch the clip and read more here!

Every year, thousands of families and dozens of community partner organizations get their seeds from Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) to jumpstart the growing season and our community’s food sovereignty. DUG’s Community Seed Distribution is designed to reduce the financial barriers involved in growing food at home or in a community garden by offering free seeds.

The program diverts hundreds of thousands of seed packets out of waste streams. Operated out of DUG’s headquarters in the Curtis Park neighborhood of Denver, the program distributes approximately 250,000 free seed packets every year.

If your organization wants bulk, free food-producing seed packets to distribute alongside your existing community programs, please reach out to Shay Moon, DUG’s Senior Manager of Food Access Programs.

This year, the 2025 Farm Fresh Directory listing process has gone digital! Anyone interested in purchasing a listing or an ad in the directory can submit their listing information and payment directly through an online portal.

Colorado agricultural producers are encouraged to submit their listings for the 2025 Farm Fresh Directory, published annually by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. The directory, which will be released in June, promotes Colorado farmers’ markets, roadside stands, u-picks, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) producers, agritourism activities, wineries, and farms and ranches that sell directly to the public.

Securing a listing is easy and can be submitted on CDA’s Markets Division page using the publications online form here. There is a $25 fee to be included in the directory and the listing deadline is March 14, 2025.

Learn More Here!

Built to address your needs, here, you can easily find and connect with information and resources provided by the City and County of Denver and community partners. Resources include city resources, legal resources, support for families, consulate offices, and Knowing Your Rights.

Find the Immigrant Support Toolkit here.

The USDA Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) nutrition programs have released a new webpage with resources and information to support cultural eating practices in federal nutrition programs.

Programs intend to provide access to culturally and religiously inclusive foods to participants and provide program operations with resources to serve such communities.

The new webpage contains resources including culturally inspired recipes, staff trainings, and foods available lists (FAL) for state agencies and tribes to order for the USDA Foods programs.

Competitive grants and technical assistance will be available for eligible food retail and food retail supply chain projects in the predevelopment and implementation stages.

In the 2024-2025 funding cycle, at least $9,000,000 is available for implementation grants, at least $1,500,000 is available for technical assistance, and at least $16,000,000 is available for loans.

Applications are due March 3, 2024 by 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

Learn more and apply!

Please make sure to check out the several grant opportunities such as The Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundations’ two new grant application’s using this spreadsheet of food-related funding opportunities.

Do you know others who would like to receive email updates from the DDPHE Food Systems Team, including upcoming grants, job opportunities, partner resources, and more?