08 16 BIKE-POWERED, FOOD-DESERTFIGHTING GROUP RECEIVES $100,000 GRANT by Haines Eason If you’re a gardener, you know this time of year is when the produce begins piling up, and sometimes, it’s hard to deal with. “No one can eat everything they grow,” says David Collins, a community gardener on Denver’s north side. Collins has a 10-by-15 foot plot at Venture Prep High School school, and he plans to donate a significant amount of what he grows to Fresh Food Connect (freshfoodconnect.org), an app-driven vegetable donation program connecting gardeners with surplus to folks in real need of fresh produce. Fresh Food Connect is the brainchild of Wendy Hawthorne, executive director of Groundwork Denver, Turner Wyatt, executive director or Denver Food Rescue and Rebecca Andruska, director of development and communications for Denver Urban Gardens. Their idea was so simple, efficient and needed, this past July, Fresh Food Connect was awarded a $100,000 grant from Impact100 Metro Denver (impact100metrodenver.org). Impact100 Metro Denver is a women’s philanthropic organization which, according to their website, seeks to “increase participation among women in local philanthropy, raise awareness of the unmet needs of nonprofits in Metro Denver, inspire members to become more involved with local charities and make a substantial and lasting impact on the long-term sustainability of our nonprofit community.” Fresh Food Connect’s premise is simple: gardeners usually have more produce on hand than they can eat, and large
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALBUS BROOKS, DENVER CITY COUNCIL, DISTRICT 9
07 16
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REV. DR. LADY LIN LOOKS BEAUTIFUL IN ALL WHITE AS SHE DANCES TO THE MUSIC AT THE 30TH ANNUAL COLORADO
Black Art Festival, which showcases African Americans in art and culture. Photo by Jeff Hersch tracts of North Denver have been classified as a food desert. Why not create a way to seamlessly share excess produce before it spoils? It all comes down to an app, and thanks to that app, Fresh Food Connect is a seamless system of notification, supply and pickup. First, gardeners living in the 80205 zip code who are interested in participating sign up at freshfoodconnect. org. Vegetable pickups are Thursdays, and two days beforehand, gardeners in the program receive a notification that a pickup day is approaching. If the participating gardeners have produce to share, they leave it on their front porch. That Thursday, Fresh Food Connect’s cyclist donation gath-
In this month’s “Neighborhood Life City Council” we interview Councilman Albus Brooks. Councilman Brooks would normally write his own column, but he is recovering from a fight against a rare form of cancer called Chondrosarcoma. It has been an up-and-down time for Councilman Brooks: in between his battle with cancer and the recent loss of his father, he was elected City Council President. In this interview, Councilman Brooks speaks on topics ranging from micro units to homelessness to City Park drainage. This interview was conducted July 15. Haines Eason: Councilman Brooks, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I am glad you are back on your feet, and I know it goes without saying everyone in your constituency is glad you're on the mend. I'm going to walk through some citywide issues that I know you'll be very familiar with, but before we begin, is there anything you want your supporters to know in regards to your health?
erers pick up whatever’s been left by the gardener. Initially developed by Code for Denver (codefordenver. org), the app was subsequently improved upon by global design firm thoughtbot (thoughtbot.com). As for which organization manages which part of the program’s operations, Hawthorne says there’s a memorandum of understanding in place which ensures the three nonprofits involved are equal partners. Groundwork Denver is supplying the behind-the-scenes manpower (institutional support), Denver Food Rescue brings its corps of cyclist food gatherers to the table, and Denver Urban Gardens continued on page 7
Councilman Albus Brooks: I'm doing good, my expectancy ... my health recovery is actually going a little faster than initially thought. I've been trying to take it easy, recovering from the sarcoma surgery. The reason why I went public with it is I felt this is a great chance to educate folks on cancer. One in eight of us has it. Chondrosarcoma is a rare form of it, and in general, it's important we get regular checkups with an indiscriminate disease. It doesn't matter how healthy you are or anything. So, it was important I come public about it. HE: You're an extremely athletic person, from all outward appearances you're in great health. How big of a shock was this to you? AB: It was a huge shock. A huge shock. And a big blow to our family, to be completely honest. We saw it as something that we were excited to overcome, and just a challenge in our life that was just going to bring us closer together. continued on page 12
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