SOUTHERN COLORADO – Grassroots efforts are forming to aid federal workers who are facing the possibility of no paycheck this Friday due to the government shutdown. “It takes all of us working together, said Amanda Suddoth with My Neighbor’s Cupboard, “It doesn’t matter what our feelings are on either side. Our feelings are that people should not be going without.”
My Neighbor’s Cupboard is a small food bank in Penrose, Colorado. It is a neighbor to neighbor food sharing center.
A lot of people in the area work for the federal prison, so leaders at the food resource want to make a food option available to offer some stability while politicians debate. If there are no federal paychecks Friday, someone with little or no savings could be facing a decision of whether to pay bills of buy food. The volunteers at My Neighbor’s Cupboard want to provide an option on the food side. “Help relieve some of those financial burdens that they’re facing. Maybe they can take that money and put it in their gas tank to continue to work or buy prescription drugs or the the things they’re needing for their family aside from food,” said Suddoth.
Another resource for federal workers is a mobile food distribution event happening Thursday at the Care & Share warehouse on the south side of Pueblo.”Fresh produce, staple items, frozen foods,” said Care & Share’s Joanna Wise.
The event was calendared to offer help to residents on Pueblo’s southeast side where the area is designated a food desert, because food resources are few. News of the federal shutdown and workers not getting paychecks prompted the idea of offering the resources to federal workers who may want to stock shelves to weather the shutdown.
The Care & Share event is 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Thurday January 10th 2019. The location is 100 Greenhorn Dr., Pueblo CO.
My Neighbor’s Cupboard has changing hours. It is located on the 400 block of Broadway in Penrose, Colorado.
There are more than 100 other food bank options in Southern Colorado. This link lists most of them.
