Mutual Meals
Today we are entering our eighth week of delivering dinner meals to seniors and families in the 80214 area through Mutual Meals. In the last eight weeks we have delivered 1,730 meals and poured over $13,500 into two Edgewater restaurants (Providence at 5280 and Edgewater Inn). Special thanks to the 25 volunteers who helped us deliver these meals and experience the joy of kids’ eyes lighting up as the meals are delivered. Our goal is to keep this program going as long as funding allows us to continue.
Thanks to the Action Center, we have also been delivering food boxes on Saturdays to families in our local schools. Since we began this delivery service, we have delivered to 43 families in three weeks. Our goal is to deliver generous food boxes and bags to twenty families each Saturday. This program will continue through the summer and into the fall.
We are so thankful for how our community has stepped up to volunteer and support these programs financially! We are also thankful to Community First Foundation and a generous donation through the Denver Foundation which have provided more funding to make this all possible. We are also thankful for Jefferson County Public Health and the Action Center for convening weekly conversations with county partners to make sure that our efforts are coordinated.
Community Gardens
Thanks to the generosity of the property owner at 5700 West 25th Avenue, we have started preparing the soil at the 25th Avenue Community Garden for planting. Produce from this garden will be delivered to families through the Mutual Meals program. Thankfully, with the Safer-at-Home order change, we were also able to start gardening again at the Jefferson Community Garden on Saturday. The school plots at the Jefferson Garden will be used to grow produce for families through Mutual Meals as well. We still have community plots at the Jefferson Community Garden available if you are interested in joining us.
Housing Help for Immigrant Families
Thanks to the generosity of school staff and community members, we have raised $6,000 already to provide $500 housing grants to immigrant families from our local schools. One of these grants arrived on the same day that a family received an eviction notice, and the grant helped the family stay in their home.
Promoting Edgewater Businesses
The COVID-19 crisis is hitting our Edgewater businesses hard as many have had to temporarily close and others have had to scale back to takeout and curbside options. One of the main ways that we are supporting our Edgewater businesses is through helping them spread their news and updates through the Edgewater Echo and sharing their updates on Facebook.
Volunteer Opportunities
Currently, we have a number of ways to volunteer and support these efforts:
- Mutual Meals dinner delivery drivers (weeknights)
- Mutual Meals food box delivery drivers (Saturdays)
- Garden help
Each week we send out a list of volunteer opportunities. If you would like join our volunteer list, email joel@edgewatercollective.org.
Looking Forward to the Summer
Based on our experiences, we have noticed the school lunch programs are not well attended by our area families for a number of reasons. This will be especially true this summer as the Jeffco Summer of Early Learning program will be virtual instead of at an area school. We are talking to our partners about the possibility of finding a delivery truck to serve grab and go lunches out of this summer. Instead of using one location, we would stop at various locations around the 80214 community where we know families live. Through various partnerships we could also deliver educational materials to students and families through this platform. Our goal is to remove hurdles, so more families and children have access to healthy food and supports this summer. We believe that with Mutual Meals we stumbled into a solution for connecting more families with resources through our delivery platform.
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