Speaker 1: Thank you. We got your back. All right. Great. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Councilwoman. All right, we're on to the second proclamation. I'm going to have Councilman Ortega please read Proclamation 1290.
Speaker 6: I will be happy to. Proclamation number 1290 Series of 2017 in recognition of 2017 National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week in Denver, the Denver metro area. Whereas everyone has a right to healthy food and a safe place to live. And. Whereas, everyone of any age, background or zip code can be affected by hunger and homelessness. And. Whereas, according to the Colorado Children's Campaign, nearly one in six. Let me say that again. One in six Colorado kids face hunger every day. They may receive their only meal at school. And. WHEREAS, thousands of people in Denver work hard to secure a better future but must choose between paying rent, buying needed medications and purchasing groceries. And. WHEREAS, systemic issues of hunger and homelessness have a wide ranging and harmful impact on individuals and on our community. And. Whereas, lack of sufficient healthy food stunts, brain development and physical growth diminishes motivation and productivity, hinders education and deteriorates one's health. And. Whereas, support programs for people without enough money for food and housing help build a foundation for a better, healthier lives and a better, healthier Denver. Whereas, government agencies, along with food pantries, shelters, faith based groups and other community based organizations strive to address the needs in our community. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one Hunger and Homeless Awareness Awareness Week is intended to educate the public, raise awareness about poverty in our community , and encourage people to get involved in anti-poverty organizations. In Section two, we recognize that many community organizations do impactful work to fight hunger and poverty, organize volunteers, and provide much needed food and services that lift our entire community, including hunger free. Colorado Metro Kerry. Bienvenidos Denver. Inner City Paris. Sid de la Raza Community Ministry and local organized local school organized effort such as Teller Backpack Friends, among many others. Section three November 13 through 19 is declared as Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, and you are urged to donate to these organizations mentioned or a local food bank in your community or the food bank of the Rockies. Section four that the clerk of the city and county of Denver affix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation, and that a copy be transmitted to hunger free Colorado metro carrying then beneath those Denver inner city Paris said vicious de la, a community ministry and teller backpack friends.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman. Your motion to adopt.
Speaker 6: Mr. President, I move for the adoption of proclamation number 1290.
Speaker 1: It has been moved and seconded. It comes by the council. Councilman Ortega.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. President. You know, we're fortunate that Denver is a city that has many organizations who who step forward and come to the aid of folks in our community who are struggling. I'm aware of many, many different churches and both nonprofit and for profit organizations that that step up and in provide food to people in our community. It's not unusual to see in the park across the street different organizations who come down and provide a meal to people who are in the park, many of whom are homeless or we have. And in many cases, they're both nonprofit and for profit organizations. We have a group that serves one meal a month over at Saint Elizabeth's Church, on the area campus that provides a hot meal. And I'm sure there are different organizations there every Sunday after mass providing a meal to two folks in our community when some of our day shelters are closed during the weekends. So oftentimes they provide a meal. But when they're closed, you know, that's a day when people otherwise wouldn't be getting food. And so the fact that we have organizations that. Gather their friends and other volunteers to prepare the meals and to bring them down and to to serve them and to not just provide the meal, but to to to be a kind face on the other end. Because oftentimes we find that many of our homeless folks feel so isolated. But to learn that we have so many families also in our community that are struggling. And when you see the cranes across our metro area, including our downtown and in all the development and construction, you would think that we wouldn't have this kind of poverty and challenge in our community. But it does exist. And this is the time of year when people. You know, open up their hearts and their pocketbooks and they're committed to trying to help their fellow neighbor, their fellow man that that has found themselves in a situation of of need. And there's nothing worse than just going hungry and not having access to food. So I want to first say thank you to all of the organizations in the city of Denver that that do this day in and day out or shelters do this day in and day out. So I just want to encourage the adoption by my colleagues, and I want to thank Joe Wood for my staff who helped put the proclamation together. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Ortega. And thank you for bringing this forward. See no other comments, Madam Secretary.
Speaker 4: Raquel Ortega. I SUSSMAN High Black. Clark High. Espinosa High. Flynn, I Gilmore. Herndon, I Cashman High Kennedy I Lopez. I knew Mr. President.
Speaker 1: I Please close the voting and announce the results. We have somebody hanging fire. All right, please close voting in us. Results 3913 I Proclamation 1290 has been adopted. Councilwoman, is there anyone you want to bring in there?
Speaker 6: I have a couple of folks, so I'd like to ask Vicky O'Neil, who's the senior vice president with Hunger-Free, Colorado. She'll be introducing Andrea Fuller. And then we have Vincent Marnell with the Teller Backpack Friends, Joyce Neufeld with community ministry and Linda Jamison with Denver Inner City Parish, who will be speaking.
Speaker 2: Go ahead. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega, and thank you to Joe Wood for coordinating our presence here. And thank you to the entire council for the proclamation. It takes public private partnerships to successfully address a problem in our community like hunger. And we've been very fortunate to enjoy very robust and meaningful partnerships with organizations like Denver Human Services. And I want to shout out to their leaders Don Morris and Todd Jorgensen, for their support over the years in tackling this issue and also the many nonprofit organizations, food banks, food pantries in the city who are doing this work . Like you said, every day we are actually seeing the impacts of these partnerships. When Hunger Free Colorado started in 2009, Colorado had the fastest growing child poverty rate in the United States. And at that same time, our children had the lowest participation rate in the federal food nutrition programs. And so, for example, we were 44th in the nation for school breakfast participation and today were 12th. Back then, in 2009, one in six of the general Colorado population were experiencing hunger. Today, that's one in ten. And as you mentioned, today, we're one in six children experiencing hunger. In 2015, that number was one in five. So you can see that we're we're moving the needle, but we still have quite a bit of work left to do. And in order to do that, we need the public and private sectors to come together collaboratively to work on solving this very solvable issue. Tonight we have Andrea Fuller here to talk for a moment about her experience with this issue. Thank you. Good evening, Council. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega, for putting this proclamation in order. I want to ask a couple of questions.
Speaker 6: How many of you have ever had to go hungry or.
Speaker 2: Missed a meal, but not by choice? What would you do if you did not know how you were going to feed your family? This is the reality for thousands of mothers, children, fathers and others in metro Denver. Food, health and housing are inextricably linked together. And I know this from experience. I am a mom.
Speaker 6: Owner of three small businesses, an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: I have completed two college degrees. I work from 7 a.m. to almost midnight most days and work 6 to 7 days per week. And yet rent.
Speaker 6: Is over 50%.
Speaker 2: Of my income. And without snap, I would not be able to buy.
Speaker 6: The food that.
Speaker 2: All of my family needs to stay healthy and to continue working. I have had to skip meals or eat less. I have.
Speaker 3: Experienced illness due to not.
Speaker 2: Eating enough. There's absolutely no reason that anyone in this great state or city should go hungry. It is thanks to organizations such as Hunger Free Colorado and many others that were mentioned, including Metro Caring. And the opportunity to advocate through them that I am here in front of you today. This proclamation is a start, but there's so much more that we need to do. Affordable housing must be built and more prominently intentionally placed throughout the city. Laws and policies promoting less food waste and more readily accessible.
Speaker 6: Resources.
Speaker 2: In areas used most, such as Montebello, Globeville and North Park Hill, providing preventative health care. All of these needs are within reach if we work together as policymakers, advocates.
Speaker 6: Businesses, nonprofits and the community. Thank you for listening. And let's put words.
Speaker 2: And proclamation into real action. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Is Vincent here? Vincent Munnell with the Tiller Backpack program.
Speaker 7: I can't echo her sentiments enough. Thank you very much for seeing me. This was a very kind surprise with the tell it back to our program. If anybody here knows the Teller Elementary, we're in Congress Park. We have a pretty simple goal. We have a lot of kids that come to school for food. Kids shouldn't have to go to elementary school for food. They should want to learn. They just want to play. They should want to be kids. They should want to be led and mentored. They shouldn't in a community such as ours that was built on giving. It was built on taking care of one another that come together for any number of reasons. They're always there with with an open hand. Yeah. We have kids who walk to school past my very house. The Just want a bite to eat. So we we recognize the need about three years ago. Unfortunately, every year the need has grown. We went from helping five families to seven families, and now we're up to about 34. It's it's a very, very unfortunate circumstance when you live in a community that's surrounded by. For sale signs for homes that are, you know, seven or $800,000. And we have we have families that can't put food on the table for for young minds. So this is definitely a step in the right direction. The Tell Her Backpack program is it's a lofty goal to help end childhood hunger. But with, you know, with steps like this and with with groups like the Tell It Backpack Program and every other group, it's it's definitely achievable goal. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you. And then we have one last speaker. Excuse me. I think we have two more Joyce Neufeld and then Linda Jemison.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for allowing us to be here tonight and for also this proclamation. My agency, Community Ministry of Southwest Denver, serves about 35,000 individuals a year, and that's just a drop in the bucket in southwest Denver. So making people aware of hunger and homelessness is really important. And Andrea is an example of who we see the most of. It's the working poor. It's not necessarily a lot of homeless people, but it's the working poor people who struggle on a daily basis to put food on their tables. During the past two years, about six major food pantries have closed. Denver Urban Matters was one of the most recent that closed and that impacted the whole Colfax corridor there. They're moving their work to Saint Francis Center, but that's becoming more and more common that the smaller pantries are closing. Even the bigger pantries are closing due to lack of funding. So although we're aware of hunger and homelessness this week and especially during Thanksgiving holidays, we see a lot of people suddenly increase their awareness. It's all year round. The people are hungry. And so I'd ask that, you know, every day is Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, and that every day we can have an impact on the lives of the kids. And organizations like Hunger Free Colorado are making a huge, huge impact, as well as all the other agencies that impact in so many different ways the garden, the food rescues. So many agencies are working together to make a difference in this community. So don't forget us all the rest of the year, not just at this time. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you for that important reminder. Linda Jamison, are you here? Okay. Come on forward, Larry. And then, Mr. President, Rudy Gonzales from Sid Vicious would like to make a few comments as well.
Speaker 7: Good evening. My name's Larry Martinez with Denver, inner city Paris. I'd like to say thank you to Councilwoman Ortega as well as the rest of city council for this proclamation and helping raise awareness. This is a very important issue and one that is solvable. You know, we live in a state where one out of nine people in Colorado struggle with hunger. I echo a lot of what was already said here tonight. The work that these organizations are doing is is very important. Inner city parish, we're distributing over £35,000 of food every month and we're serving 1100 and duplicated individuals every month. And that number continues to grow and grow. And here, you know, at the same time, we're having organizations close and resources are getting more scarce. So like Joy said, you know, remember us throughout the year and Colorado gives us also coming up and remember us then. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Rudy, are you going to be the one speaking? Okay. If you can come forward. This is Rudy Gonzalez with Sid Vicious. La Raza.
Speaker 7: Yes. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you. Council. City Council. With me is Neva martinez, Ortega, who's our director of our emergency services program for Servicios de la Raza. We're a probably the largest one stop culturally responsive, linguistically specific provider in the state now providing multiple human services. And one of our turnkey programs is emergency services, which we have been providing our communities now for probably over 35 years. And we're a 45 year old agency fiscal year. We served over £170,000 of food to 15 to 16000 people. And that's infants, that's children, adolescents, disabled veterans, homeless, foster care. Every population you can think of, we have served we serve our elderly. We work with them on a lot of different levels to try to keep them sustainable and in their home hygiene. In-Home. So. We want to thank you for this proclamation, Councilwoman, and thank you for all of your votes. It is important we are serving those in crisis, the vulnerable, trying to get them to a safe level, a table level, and get them to thriving. And so I just want to introduce Neva martinez, Ortega, who has a little challenge for a city council.
Speaker 2: Thank you, really. And thank you again, Councilman Ortega. As Rudy mentioned, we always struggle with funding in these programs. And currently our basic emergency services program, Food Pantry, is completely unfunded. But we are still working with our community partners and relying on our community to still make our holiday season and our everyday food bank happen. So I brought you all a little gift in bringing up this proclamation of a reusable grocery bag with our information, but also an opportunity to participate in our holiday events where we'll be providing 900 food boxes to the community. So I don't know who to give this to to give to you all. Thank you. But but with that is an opportunity to to help our organization and helping our community provide those food boxes.
Speaker 1: Thank you and thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Right. Councilwoman Black Last Proclamation, 1291, please.
A proclamation in recognition of 2017 National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week in the Denver Metro Area.