Ana Harris was on her way to the grocery store one hot day in August when she realized she had only $100 in food stamps left for the rest of the month — not enough for Harris and her four teenage boys.
She turned around and headed to a parking lot in Silt where she found a large trailer filled with food. The trailer belongs to LIFT-UP, a nonprofit that provides food assistance from Aspen to Parachute.
Earlier this year, the organization bought and retrofitted the trailer as a mobile food pantry — part of its effort to reach more people in the region at a time of rising food insecurity.
The trailer has become a popular resource, and all morning, a line of cars extended across the parking lot, Harris’s among them.
A domestic violence survivor and single mother to five boys, the food stamps Harris receives rarely cover all their needs.
“Just having food in the house is sometimes hard,” she said.
Fruits and vegetables, which she prefers to processed food, are especially difficult to come by. Harris said it’s hard to justify buying fresh produce when a bag of potato chips costs $1.50 and a pound of peaches costs $1.97.
Inside the LIFT-UP trailer, rows of shelves are packed with canned goods, along with a freezer and two refrigerators filled with everything from gluten free pizza to containers of hummus and boxes of spinach.
According to data from LIFT-UP, 10% of people in Pitkin County are food insecure, while in Eagle and Garfield counties, the numbers are 9% and 8%, respectively.
A combination of factors is to blame, said Elyse Hottel, the interim executive director of LIFT-UP. In particular, the loss of pandemic-related benefits and the rising cost of living in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys have exacerbated the need for food assistance.
“Close to 30% of the people here in the valley are faced with the choice between housing and food,” said Hottel.
A 2023 strategic plan released by the Mountain Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security recommended that food assistance groups in Eagle, Garfield, and Pitkin counties have less than 25 miles between distribution sites.
But creating a new brick-and-mortar pantry would take a lot of resources, so LIFT-UP created the mobile pantry to expand their capacity.
Many of LIFT-UP’s clients are elderly and on a fixed income, or they’re single mothers like Harris, trying to put enough food on the table for their families.
According to the USDA, nearly a quarter of all households in the U.S. headed by a single mother experience food insecurity.
For Holli Jones, the Glenwood Springs warehouse coordinator for LIFT-UP, their struggle resonates.
Growing up in a Diné family in Utah on the border of the Navajo Nation, Jones’ community relied on food banks. Still, skipping meals was a part of how they lived — especially when kids or grandparents were around.
“They'd get to eat first,” she said. “And then anyone that wanted to not eat would make that choice and basically save that food for another time.”
Occasionally, Jones remembered eating apples or grapes, but for the most part, fresh food was rare.
Now, through LIFT-UP, she helps prevent the type of food scarcity she experienced. Often, kids will stop by the mobile pantry after skateboarding or playing baseball in the nearby park.
“They'll get thirsty or hungry — snackish — and they don't bring anything,” Jones said. “It's a pretty nice feeling to help out, even if it's just a bottle of water.”
LIFT-UP provides more than the standard canned goods. Its Farm-to-Pantry program partners with local ranchers and farmers to provide a regular supply of fresh produce, meat, and dairy products to its pantries.
More than half the organization’s budget goes toward purchasing fresh food, said Hottel. The rest of the food is a combination of leftover items from restaurants and grocery stores, donations, and shelf-stable items purchased through the Food Bank of the Rockies.
But it’s getting harder to meet the growing need for food assistance. According to Hottel, visits to LIFT-UP’s five brick-and-mortar pantries have more than doubled since 2022, while donations have decreased.
Last month, LIFT-UP announced plans to sell its two buildings in Rifle and Parachute to free up money for more food distribution. That includes buying a new truck with greater towing capacity so it can bring the mobile pantry to additional locations.
Despite LIFT-UP’s financial challenges, the organization distributed 800,000 pounds of food to 188,000 people in 2024.
Toward the end of its mobile pantry last month, a few stragglers showed up while LIFT-UP volunteers and staff were packing up.
Jones pointed them to the remaining produce — and a box of rainbow cupcakes. Any leftovers that can be redistributed will go to another LIFT-UP pantry.
Ana Harris received the last box of peaches for her boys.
For Harris, the LIFT-UP pantry provides more than food. She said it helps women who’ve suffered domestic violence escape vulnerable situations.
“A lot of women stay with the abusers because they
think they can't make it by themselves,” she said.
Before Harris left, she revealed a tiny grocery list she had written on her hand: the ingredients for refried beans. It’s another meal she can provide for her boys, but also proof she can make it on her own.
