Newsletter

Going Further with Food and Project Angel Heart

March 28, 2018

Created by the Academy of Dietetics, National Nutrition Month celebrates nutrition education and encourages people to make healthy and informed decisions about their food. This year’s theme, “Going Further with Food,” focuses on the impact of food on one’s health AND encourages individuals to find ways to make their food go further – making a dent in food waste! We Don’t Waste holds these values at the core of our mission, knowing that people need healthy food to be successful, and that ending food waste is a way to ensure that all people have access to nutritious food.

We’re particularly excited this month because Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment (DDPHE) recognizes these values and has named We Don’t Waste as a finalist for the Denver Healthy Communities Award. The other finalist in our category (the “Good Neighbor” award) is Project Angel Heart, an organization with whom we partner closely and are happy to be “up against.”

It’s particularly fitting that Project Angel Heart is the other finalist during National Nutrition Month, because nutrition is essential to what they do. Already this year, We Don’t Waste has provided Project Angel Heart with 28,670 servings of food, helping them stretch their resources further.

Partner Profile: Project Angel Heart

Founded in 1991, Project Angel Heart serves nutritious meals, free of charge, to chronically ill individuals in the Denver metro area and Colorado Springs. This year, Project Angel Heart will prepare and deliver an estimated 385,000 medically tailored meals to 3,000 Coloradans living with life-threatening illnesses. Almost 60 percent of people that the organization serves are living in poverty. According to Amy Daly, Marketing & Communications Manager for Project Angel Heart, “Many clients tell us that, before receiving our meals, they would eat just once a day in order to afford their prescriptions.”

Like this year’s National Nutrition Month focus on food as a way to “go further,” Project Angel Heart recognizes that “nutritious food is medicine for people living with life-threatening medical conditions.” Despite the benefits of eating a nutritious diet, preparing healthy foods can be highly difficult when you have limited energy and/or mobility. And, of course, the financial burden of illness is an additional barrier.

When asked what the partnership with We Don’t Waste means to them, Daly noted two benefits. “First, we’ve been able to reduce our food costs by getting access to amazing, healthy ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.” And as an added win-win, Project Angel Heart is able to direct potential donors towards We Don’t Waste when they are approached with food donation that are larger than they can use, ensuring that every pound of food goes towards feeding hungry people.