Food For Thought Denver
FFT’s only program is to provide food so students experiencing poverty can leave school on Friday afternoon with the confidence that they will be able to prepare and eat simple meals throughout the weekend. In its elementary and middle schools, FFT’s volunteers pack and distribute PowerSacks that contain nonperishable items that can feed a family of four two meals, plus snacks. In all high schools and some middle and elementary schools, FFT operates food pantries where students can select the foods they prefer. The program delivers food to each school throughout the school year (36 weeks). Deliveries are made to each school every other Friday so FFT can serve more schools than it would otherwise be able to, given funding limitations. However, because almost every family has at least two students attending the school, most families will receive two PowerSacks, which will provide enough food for two weekends.
Food For Thought Denver (FFT) was founded in 2012 by two community members who were concerned that too many public school students in Denver were leaving school on Friday afternoon anxious that they might not have food to eat over the weekend. FFT’s founders knew that “backpack” food programs could alleviate food insecurity based on their four years of experience doing similar work in Arvada schools, so they reached out to principals and teachers in Denver Public Schools (DPS) to ask if they could help. School staff shared that many of their students arrived at school on Monday mornings unable to focus and learn because they were hungry. Motivated to leverage their experience about how to launch and scale a backpack food program to DPS, the founders partnered with the Arvada Sunrise Rotary Foundation, which agreed to serve as FFT’s fiscal agent and provided $30,000 in seed funding to establish FFT. In its inaugural year, FFT served 500 students at two DPS elementary schools. Wanting to reach more students who experienced weekend hunger, FFT began fundraising to serve more schools. Despite being a 100% volunteer-run organization over the last seven years, FFT now serves 72 schools.
Financials
Programs
Feeding the Children
FFT does not require that students or their families sign up or prove income to participate. By making this program available to every student in the school, FFT reduces many of the barriers that exist in traditional food backpack programs, such as language, pride and parents who do not complete the paperwork to sign up for the service. Because every child receives a PowerSack or has access to the food pantry, the stigma associated with taking free food is reduced as well.
Power Sack
We deliver PowerSacks throughout the school year to all students attending 72 elementary schools and two middle/high schools and three high school.
Volunteering + Events
Rock-A-Belly
Rock-A-Belly
Our Annual Childhood Hunger Fundraiser
| Outdoor Quad Area – MSU Tivoli
Our highly anticipated annual music and food festival — Rock-A-Belly! Experience the sounds of the amazing New Orleans-based band, Cowboy Mouth, in an outdoor summer evening setting. Delve into the delicious tastings from some of Denver’s hottest restaurants, breweries, and distilleries while supporting our noble cause. This event helps raise money to purchase food in the fall for our 71 school roster as we fight against weekend hunger for school kids in the Denver metro area.
Pack a bag
We are a 100% volunteer program. We have no employees and pay no salaries. Never have, never will!
Our generous Board of Directors cover all admin and fundraising costs.
100% of your donations are used to buy food for our program.
Volunteers are the heart and soul of Food For Thought! Sign up to Pack a Bag at two of our bag packing sites, or Give a Bag by donating funds to help us purchase non-perishable food and run our operation.
