7th Annual Stapleton Food Drive

 The Stapleton Community Food Drive was started by Stapleton Realtors, looking for a way to give back their neighborhood.

In the fall of 2011, New Perspective Real Estate agents were looking for a way to volunteer as a team. The company motto is “Get Comfortable” and as the holidays were approaching, we decided to give comfort in the form of food.  We worked with the Food Bank of the Rockies to host collection barrels at a few local businesses and shops in Stapleton. With local business partners like Amore Fiori and Clair Family Dentistry, the Drive collected about 1000 pounds of food which was donated to the Food Bank of the Rockies.

What started as a grass-roots campaign to fill a handful of collection barrels with canned goods quickly transformed into a neighborhood-wide coordinated effort.

In 2013, NPRE marketing expert, Tiffany Burke, suggested we deliver empty paper grocery bags to aid in the food collection. With the addition of the door-to-door donation bag delivery and pick-up service, increased business sponsorship, and a heart-warming number of volunteers, the charity became stronger.

On the first collection bag pick-up day, dozens of volunteers of all ages joined in the effort.  Stapleton parents took the opportunity to teach their children how volunteering can make a community more successful.  The kids were rewarded for their efforts by watching food donations pile up and get loaded into the Food Bank of the Rockies donation truck.

In 2015, the event officially became a federally recognized non-profit organization, providing even more public awareness and corporate involvement.  During this year and every year since, we have joined forces with the several of Stapleton school food pantry programs. In some circumstances, the free and/or reduced lunch program at school is not enough. In order to help bridge the gap for some students at home, parents fill student backpacks each week with supplemental nutritional food.

Those local school pantries routinely solicited donations from parents to re-stock the pantry supplies.  We realized that our efforts were running parallel to each other, thus it was natural to combine efforts.  For the past two years, the Stapleton Food Drive donated more than $7000 to those local school pantries.

Service to others is cornerstone in most households and classrooms. The students who participated in the Food Drive and filled the local school pantries learned that their combined efforts helped other families who may have fallen on hard times and need a little help.

Now with both the Food Bank of the Rockies and local school food pantries as the beneficiaries of the Food Drive, the donations have multiplied.  And in 2016, we collected and distributed the equivalent of 50,000 meals.

In Stapleton, we are fortunate to live in a neighborhood full of caring and helpful residents.  When we rally together, we can become synergistically involved. Please join us in collecting meals for those people in and around our community who are suffering from hunger and poor nutrition.  Click here to donate.