Originally Published in The Santa Fe New Mexican – Link to original article

Our View
Neighbors need help: Donate to alleviate hunger
Sep 11, 2025

There’s just over a week left.

Before Sept. 23, help your neighbors by contributing to The Food Depot’s annual Neighbor to Neighbor Fund Drive, ensuring thousands of people in Northern New Mexico won’t go hungry.

The annual drive brings the community together across Santa Fe to raise money for food. Dozens of neighborhoods and organizations are involved in a friendly competition to see who can raise the most money. It’s a great cause and a terrific way to build community in these isolated times.

When the drive began 13 years ago, The Food Depot wanted food donations. Now the goal is to collect cash. This year, folks at The Food Depot are aiming for $500,000. More would be even better. That’s because of inflation — food is expensive right now — and because of federal funding cuts related to food, whether grants to food banks or reduced SNAP benefits.

Where does that money go? Across nine counties of Northern New Mexico, The Food Depot staffers and volunteers bag groceries, hand out food, stock pantries at other organizations and seek to ensure people don’t have to worry about their next meal.

Money is crucial. With $1, the smart shoppers at The Food Depot can deliver up to four meals.

Imagine that: Four meals for a buck, helping 40,000 people across the nine counties. That includes 12,000 children. These neighbors lack consistent access to healthy food. That’s the definition of food insecurity. They go hungry.

Here’s just one story demonstrating need. In Union County — Clayton is the county seat — The Food Depot visited monthly with mobile food pantries. That wasn’t meeting people’s needs.

Rusty Kohler, a project manager for the Golden Spread Rural Frontier Coalition nonprofit, dreamed bigger. He contacted The Food Depot with a donated building and a dream.

He wanted to start a food pantry; over the 18 months since initial contact, he and other volunteers renovated the building and found money to buy equipment. The Food Depot donated and installed a $33,000 walk-in refrigerator, fulfilling a major need.

Opening day came. In the first two days, the Golden Spread served 185 families. By June, the group between 300 and 500 families each week; in July, the Clayton pantry offered diapers as well as food.

Why diapers? They can cost $80 to $100 a month. That’s money working people need, whether to buy food or pay rent. When cash is short, diapers might be sacrificed, hardly healthy for babies or families.

The Food Depot partners with agencies and organizations across its service area to get diapers to families — churches, schools, transitional housing programs, a community college and others help diapers get where they are needed. Just like going to the store, families can pick up the food and supplies they need in one place.

None of this — pet food also is distributed — would be possible without community support, something Santa Fe has been known for since the founding of The Food Depot in the 1990s.

By November 1995, the fledgling nonprofit already was serving 35 agencies and had distributed some 130,000 pounds of food. It’s still growing today, with a focus on delivering a healthy mix of food. Fruits and vegetables are 59% of food distributed, with protein at 20%. Volunteers sort and bag the food, giving 23,700 hours of service to help stop food insecurity in fiscal year 2025.

The Neighbor to Neighbor Fund Drive kicked off in June and is winding down during Hunger Action Month. Now, it’s time to join with neighbors and help The Food Depot reach its goal.

Want to help?

Donate to the Neighbor to Neighbor fund drive at give.thefooddepot.org/n2n. Your neighborhood not participating? Donate under “Friend of The Food Depot.”

Get involved through advocacy, education, and volunteering at thefooddepot.org/get-involved/