New Mexico is choosing abundance in food policy by Jill Dixon
My View Published in The Santa Fe New Mexican on June 6, 2026
New Mexico Is Choosing Abundance In Food Policy
By Jill Dixon
You never forget the lines of cars at your first food distribution, or the clients. Somehow, even after your hundredth, moments still stay with you.
As the executive director of The Food Depot, community members have questioned if our mission to end hunger is possible. The last few years I’ve challenged, “Hunger is a policy choice.” Any policy choice at a governmental level can create scarcity, increasing food distribution lines or embracing abundance for families.
The Food Depot propels the movement toward food security by supporting a strong network of nonprofit organizations and our own programs, all of which cumulatively provide food assistance at 150-plus locations each month. Dedicated staff, volunteers and partnerships have made the staggering task of distributing 12 million pounds of food to 43,000 New Mexicans possible this year. These clients are friends and neighbors hit hardest by the affordability crisis.
Food banks, by design, should be the last line of defense to prevent people from going hungry. Long before someone, perhaps a senior, enters our Thursday morning distribution line before the sun rises, they have exhausted all other options. This grandmother has used her Social Security to pay the rent for her small family. Her daughter’s paycheck has paid utility bills, hospital bills and school supplies for her granddaughter. They have both hustled for extra income this month to fix the car and used their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/WIC funds by mid-month.
In this space of anxiety, we recognize that all U.S. states are not created equally. There is no uniformity from state to state in safety net services offered, including the presence of universal school meals for her granddaughter.
Each state must make its own policy choices regarding food security, one of scarcity or one of abundance. In New Mexico, we choose abundance.
The Governor’s Office and state Legislature took bold policy action in 2024 to create Universal Healthy School Meals. With nearly 25% of New Mexico’s children experiencing food security that year, Universal Healthy School Meals expanded meal eligibility to more than 150,000 previously underserved children, offering an additional 2.5 million breakfasts and 3 million lunches.
By making meals accessible to all, the healthy meals program eliminated the shame and stigma surrounding reduced lunch. The state’s continued investment has secured schools as places where children can learn and grow.
Additionally, in 2024, the state made a bold policy decision to expand SNAP, formerly food stamps, eligibility from 165% to 200% of federal poverty level. Although SNAP is a federal program, this decision made grocery benefits accessible to an additional 67,697 New Mexicans. SNAP is the nation’s most effective hunger-relief program. These households were empowered to shop for their own groceries with additional SNAP benefits rather than seek emergency food assistance. This policy choice embraced abundance and strengthened the economy.
The Food Depot celebrates the strategic leadership and continued commitment to food security from our New Mexico policymakers. Policy interventions have reduced childhood poverty at a rate far exceeding the national average.
Using the supplemental poverty measure, New Mexico’s childhood poverty rate falls to 10.3% compared to the standard measure of 24.2%, ranking the state as 21st in the nation. Policies of abundance are working, and this progress must continue.
New Mexicans are facing increased fuel costs, transportation barriers and food-supply challenges. Families will continue to need support from state leadership and regional food banks to make ends meet. Still, we are empowered by the commitment from the New Mexico Health Care Authority, the state Legislature and the Governor’s Office. New Mexicans have proven that when we choose policies of abundance, our communities begin to thrive.
Jill Dixon is the executive director of The Food Depot, Northern New Mexico’s regional food bank serving nine counties.
Bagging most beans, spilling a few, Atalaya Elementary students pitch in at The Food Depot (SFNM)
Published in The Santa Fe New Mexican on November 15, 2025
Bagging most beans, spilling a few, Atalaya Elementary students pitch in at The Food Depot
By André Salkin asalkin@sfnewmexican.com, November 15, 2025
Carmen Garcia, 10, adds a scoop of pinto beans to a bag Thursday alongside her fifth grade classmates from Atalaya Elementary School while volunteering for the second time at The Food Depot. (
The children understood their mission: Bag and label pinto beans to be distributed to families in need.
About 40 fifth-graders used division of labor and efficient assembly lines to tackle the volunteer job Thursday at The Food Depot with the professionalism and seriousness befitting a noble task.
The young volunteers circled a couple of 2,000-pound bean sacks in the halls of The Food Depot and got to work. Some scooped beans into bags; some weighed the bags; others tied them shut. At the end of the long table of bean-packagers, Ray Smith, 10, developed a sophisticated system to arrange the finished bags in a neat, stable fashion.
“ We haven’t had any major bean spills. It’s a big old assembly line, and it’s already proven to be efficient,” Ray said.
“And they’re a fun food to package,” chipped in Calvin Lovato, 11, at his side. “That’s not the main thing, but they definitely are fun.”
The school outing is the second in a series of holiday-season visits teachers and students say has been a big hit at the school; staff said it’s been a boon for the food bank, which has recently seen a surge in demand.
As time passed, adolescent restlessness grew, beans began to spill, and the group’s initial efficiency faltered.
After tying off a bag of beans, 10-year-old Lia Cotofana hurled the package at Seven Peterson.
“If you drop that, you’re cooked,” Seven said as he caught the fastball.
Another student reckoned he’d like to jump into Ray’s meticulously arranged pile of bagged beans. Izaiah Morales, 10, who said his family directly benefits from Food Depot distributions, wrapped his arms around a precarious stack of bean bags piled so high it reached his glasses.
Seven, 11, said he has traveled far and wide: five continents and 25 countries, taking away from his travels a simple message: “A lot of people, me included, take food and water for granted, and a lot of other resources too.”
Many of the kids shared the sentiment that the work they were doing was vital.
“They say they want to give back,” said teacher Bart Ramey, who established the tradition at the school with an October visit, and who has plans for another field trip in December.
“They say it makes them feel better about their self-esteem,” he added, an angle he said plays into the social-emotional learning that’s part of the students’ curriculum.
In a separate room, Lisa Rubin, the other fifth grade teacher, was managing her 17 students. She said she jumped at the opportunity when Ramey proposed it.
“ We have the same values,” she said. “We both are about … having them be conscious socially.”
“ It’s kind to help people,” said 11-year-old Aidan Martinez, as he packed beans alongside his twin brother Aaron. “You need to spread joy.”
Jackie Lighter, 10, whose first volunteer experience was Thursday, said she “might actually want to work” at The Food Depot when she gets older, “probably because it’s fun to bag beans,” she said.
Items like beans are standard to the food bank’s distribution packages, which also include 50%-60% fresh produce and vegetables, dairy or eggs and a protein item.
‘Right now, especially’
“ It’s important to give back,” said Keshav Hedrick, 10, who wore a very serious face as he slid labels into bean bags. “Right now, especially, people need it more because the government shut down. It’s harder for people to get food.”
The students’ visit, an exercise in civic engagement — and some fun — is timely for The Food Depot, which serves nine counties as one of the region’s preeminent food distributors. The food bank has seen a 40% increase in the number of those seeking its food, said Pauline Montoya, lead volunteer program coordinator for the food bank — a product of uncertainty and fear around suspension of SNAP benefits, also referred to as food stamps.
“It was a little scary,” she said. But she trusted her leadership and hundreds of volunteers, who she refers to as her “little babies.”
“We kind of went back to our COVID times of saying, ‘Hey, we’ve made it through this.’ ”
It was during the pandemic that Montoya decided to join the food bank. She recalled the food distributions that fed her family — a single mother with five children growing up on San Ildefonso Pueblo.
“ Just seeing I had food in my own community,” she said, “I was like, ‘I could be doing that for someone else.’"
SFNM Our View: Neighbors need help. Donate to alleviate hunger.
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/
The Food Depot's Statement on Budget Reconciliation
July 13, 2025
The Food Depot's Statement on Budget Reconciliation
On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Even though the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is now law, what it means for New Mexico is still unclear. Major changes to SNAP and Medicaid are coming, but their impact here depends on how the law is implemented. The Food Depot is actively monitoring developments and will keep our community informed as we learn more.
Here's what we do know:
SNAP and Medicaid are facing unprecedented changes. There will be structural changes to both programs, as well as cuts to eligibility and benefits.
For SNAP, there will be an estimated six billion meals lost each year across the United States.
Medicaid changes estimate a loss of health insurance for over 8 million people in the Unites States by 2034 due to Medicaid cuts alone.
Changes to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) Include:
- Shifting SNAP costs to states by:
- Requiring states to pay a portion of SNAP benefits for the first time in program history, up to 15%, based on their payment error rates, beginning in October 2027. Final negotiations in the Senate resulted in a temporary implementation delay for up to two years for states with high error rates. New Mexico's error rate is 14.67%, so our state should fall under delayed implementation.
- Increasing state’s share of administrative costs to 75%.
- Restrict future adjustments to the Thrifty Food Plan. The USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan estimates the cost of a healthy diet at the lowest price point and is used to determine SNAP benefit amounts. Without a consideration for the cost of living (and no language to prevent decreases), SNAP benefits will be cut, as well as benefit levels for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), SUN Bucks/Summer EBT benefits, and the Nutrition Assistance Program block-grant to Puerto Rico. (No specified effective date, assumed effective upon enactment.)
- Increasing the number of individuals subject to time limits on their SNAP benefits, including, for the first time ever, parents of school-aged children over 14 and older adults age 55 through age 64 by expanding work requirements and restricting waivers. (No specified effective date, assumed effective upon enactment.)
- Adds a time limit on benefits for veterans, currently homeless individuals and former foster care youth. (No specified effective date, assumed effective upon enactment.)
- Eliminating funding for the SNAP Nutrition Education program (called SNAP-Ed). Many of The Food Depot's partners rely on SNAP Ed. Termination of this funding will be October 2025.
SNAP is the most effective hunger relief program in the U.S. For every one meal that The Food Depot provides, SNAP provides nine.
The Food Depot, and the rest of the charitable food network, can not provide the same amount of support that will be lost. With the passage of this bill, we know more and more people will go hungry.
We are forever grateful for the thousands of New Mexicans who joined The Food Depot over the last few months to speak out about these cuts with countless phone calls, emails, and letters. Now, we must move forward with compassion and resolve to create a strong, healthy New Mexico.
This is not a moment for despair; it is a moment for action. Our communities are counting on us.
Together, we can continue to do good.
USDA Terminates Regional Farm to Food Bank Program
USDA Federal Funding Cuts Terminate Successful Program Connecting Local NM Food Producers and Food BanksMarch 17, 2025
Santa Fe, NM – The Food Depot, Northern New Mexico’s Food Bank, regrets to announce that federal funding supporting the Regional Farm to Food Bank (RF2FB) program has been terminated, despite an initial extension, effectively bringing the federally funded program to an end.The RF2FB has been instrumental in connecting New Mexico farmers, ranchers, and food producers to the state’s food bank network. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) termination of federal funding creates uncertainty for local food producers who sell to food banks and reduces access to locally grown food statewide.
The RF2FB program, created under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, is currently funded through the USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) Cooperative Agreement. Since its inception, the RF2FB has been a significant purchaser of local foods, accounting for 34% of all NM Grown institutional purchases from small and midsize producers in 2024.
“During the last three years, New Mexico’s RF2FB program has been a national standout, spending more than $3.6 million with local producers on healthy and culturally appropriate food,” says Denise Miller, Executive Director of the New Mexico Farmers’ Marketing Association that partners with The Food Depot on this initiative.
In October 2024, the USDA announced a $500 million extension of the LFPA program, with $2.8 million designated for New Mexico, prompting producers to plan and invest in the next three-year cycle. However, on March 7, 2025, the USDA informed the New Mexico Department of Agriculture (NMDA) that it would terminate the 2025 LFPA Cooperative Agreement, ending federal funding for the RF2FB and halting operations when the current LFPA program ends.
“The federal government’s decision to end this program delivers a major blow to families like mine who are heavily invested in feeding our communities locally produced beef. There’s nothing more American than feeding your community fresh beef that was born, raised, and processed in a 60-mile radius. Ranching isn’t just our livelihood—it’s our heritage,” explains Manny Encinias, owner of Trilogy Beef and Buffalo Creek Ranch in Moriarty, NM. “Without this support, we risk losing more than income; we risk losing the ability to sustain our land, our families, and our way of life. This decision doesn’t just impact ranchers. It threatens the entire rural economy, including locally owned businesses like our USDA meat processing facility, which depends on ranching families like us to stay in operation. Perhaps most concerning, it makes it even harder to bring the next generation back to the ranch,” stresses Mr. Encinias. “Without programs like this, the future of family ranching becomes even more uncertain, discouraging the very people we need to carry this way of life forward.”
The loss of federal support has a profound impact on local farmers, ranchers, food banks, and families who depend on this critical program.
- 94% of RF2FB purchases in 2024 were purchased from socially disadvantaged and historically underserved producers.
- 899,402 pounds of locally grown food have been distributed since January 2023, providing 749,502 healthy meals.
- Every $1 spent on local food generates $1.70 in economic benefits, reinforcing regional economies.
- The RF2FB has delivered food to over 250 distribution sites across all 33 New Mexico counties.
- 17 out of 33 New Mexico counties have participating producers.
- In FY24, 34% of all NM Grown institutional purchases came from The RF2FB.
- Over 200 New Mexican farmers, ranchers, and small local food businesses have benefited from this program.
The Food Depot, in partnership with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, manages the program for the New Mexico Association of Food Banks (NMAFB). All five of New Mexico’s food banks secure food through partnerships with donors, nationwide procurement efforts, and food rescue. The Regional Farm to Food Bank program allowed the food bank network to invest in local producers and enhanced the healthy and culturally responsive food options at local food bank distributions.
“This program has played a vital role in strengthening New Mexico’s food system,” says Jill Dixon, Executive Director at The Food Depot. “The loss of funding will disrupt supply chains and also impact the livelihoods of the farmers and the communities they help feed.”
The Food Depot and the New Mexico Farmers’ Marketing Association (NMFMA) are urging New Mexico’s congressional delegation to create a permanent LFPA program in the next Farm Bill to maintain the proven partnership between local farmers, growers, and food banks. Additionally, we are pushing to reverse the decision to terminate LFPA25 and reinstate it. The Food Depot and NMFMA remain committed to advocating for strong food systems and ensuring that all New Mexicans continue to have access to fresh, locally sourced food.
Organizational Contacts
The Food Depot
Jill Dixon, Executive Director
New Mexico Farmers’ Marketing Association
Denise Miller, Executive Director
“Movement” Earns Emmy Nomination
The Food Depot’s “Movement” Earns Emmy NominationSeptember 11, 2024
Santa Fe—The Food Depot, Northern New Mexico’s food bank, was honored this week to receive a prestigious Emmy nomination for its short film “Movement”. The film, created by Docufilms in late 2023 and released shortly after, was produced by Docufilms founder Michael Campbell and directed by Zac Cornfield.
“Movement” was nominated in the Branded Content Long Form category by the Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Their designated awards region includes Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and El Centro, CA. Winners will be announced at an awards gala on November 16, 2024.
Donors and supporters can watch the 20-minute film now on The Food Depot’s website.
The Rocky Mountain Emmys website describes Branded Content nominees as “excellence in connecting or engaging an audience with an organization’s brand. The content integrates the brand or brand messaging in the storytelling in an entertaining, creative, or emotional way. This prestigious nomination highlights The Food Depot’s innovation and heart, bringing its hunger-relief mission and impact to life in a way that stays with audiences long after the film ends.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled,” shares Jill Dixon, Executive Director of The Food Depot. “This honor really belongs to everyone who makes the daily movement of The Food Depot a reality—our staff, volunteers, supporters, and partners. We are so thankful to Docufilms for the gift of ‘Movement’ and for this nomination.”
“Movement” tells the inspiring story of the movement of millions of pounds of food from farms, trucks, food distributions, and volunteers into the hands of clients across Northern New Mexico. The Food Depot and its partners work daily to move emergency food, but also work to advocate for long-term food security solutions. The film features the movement of The Food Depot’s staff and volunteers at their own programs and a look at food-security partners, including Reunity Resources in Santa Fe, Bernal Community Center in San Miguel County, and Market Street grocery store.
“The Food Depot is definitely on the move,” says “Movement” producer Michael Campbell, of Docufilms. “The first time I toured The Food Depot I thought we were going to do a film about warehouses, trucks, and logistics. What I soon realized was we were doing a film about the fight to end hunger, powered by the love and dedication of its staff and volunteers. This nomination is recognition of their commitment to ending poverty in Northern New Mexico.”
“The film tries to capture the true spirit of The Food Depot,” shares director Zac Cornfield. “I hope this nomination encourages even more people to join their movement.”
The 20-minute film can be watched on The Food Depot’s website at thefooddepot.org/movement.
Organization Contact: Amanda Bregel, Communications Manager
Sherry Hooper and the Food Depot — game-changers
Originally publishes as an "Our View" in the Santa Fe New Mexican on July 2, 2024.
OUR VIEW
Sherry Hooper and the Food Depot — game-changers
Sherry Hooper has left the building.
The last day at work for the longtime Food Depot executive director was Sunday, marking more than two decades of leadership that transformed how food is delivered to hungry people in nine Northern New Mexican counties. We are grateful for her service and for the organization that has transformed as the needs of the community changed.
Today, this beloved community partner delivers 9 million pounds of food annually.
When she began at the food bank in September 2001, much of the food available had been prepared in restaurants. Hooper saw the need for shelf-stable goods that people could take home and turn into tasty, healthy meals for themselves and their families. Additionally, she had to lay down a stronger institutional structure — The Food Depot lacked adequate agency records, financial reserves and had few big donors to fund its programs. Her days would be spent working in the warehouse and then late into the night writing grants and donor assistance requests.
She knew the need was great and her services had to expand.
By 2007, she was ready to begin work on that expansion. In 2013, The Food Depot moved into its own warehouse — 27,000 square feet of storage. That allowed more staples to be on hand and made it possible to expand healthy offerings. The expanded depot also began offering wraparound services to provide diapers and pet food to those in need.
The agency always was ready to react as the situation on the ground changed. The Food Depot — twice a Santa Fe Community Foundation Piñon Award Tried and True winner — continually seeks to improve. One way that happens is the involvement of hundreds of community members in the work of feeding people. The desire to fight hunger, in addition to putting food in people’s bellies, also has created a community of compassionate people. Whether attending the much-anticipated Souper Bowl fundraiser each year, participating in the Neighbor to Neighbor Fund Drive or putting on a food drive, the work brings people together in Santa Fe.
Nowhere was that more evident than in the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic. With so many individuals out of work, schools closed and senior centers shut, many more people in the community didn’t have enough to eat. The Food Depot started handing out bags of groceries directly, with hundreds of cars in line at each distribution. For kids unable to get free lunches at school, meals were prepared and parents swung by school parking lots to take food home.
Just as The Food Depot proved to be innovative with food delivery, Hooper understood her group had to do more than provide food, as important as that was. She became an advocate for better food policy, whether at the local, state or federal level. She was instrumental in forming the Santa Fe Food Policy Council in 2008, lobbied for elimination of the food tax at the Legislature and raises alarms whenever Congress threatens to harm important food security programs. She also is an outspoken supporter of better wages because, as research shows, when people earn a decent paycheck, they can afford groceries. Eliminating poverty will help eliminate hunger.
Now, Hooper has new adventures ahead. As is important for a good leader, she trained a worthy successor. Her longtime second in command, Jill Dixon, has been named executive director. In Dixon’s capable hands, we are sure new approaches are inevitable — this is an ever-changing organization, after all — with eyes focused always on the goal of eliminating hunger.
But future successes, in part, will owe much to the 20-plus years Sherry Hooper spent at the helm. Her work to eliminate the insecurity that comes when the next meal is uncertain and the cupboard is bare has made the difference in the lives of thousands of New Mexicans. What a legacy.
From The Food Depot Staff:
The Food Depot takes a laudable leap of faith
By Phill Casaus pcasaus@sfnewmexican.com
Mar 26, 2022 Updated May 1, 2023
One of the gutsier moves around Santa Fe in the past several months took place at The Food Depot, which for years has been fighting to stave off hunger in Northern New Mexico with persistence, pluck and a near-maniacal devotion to mission.
No one can argue the organization is unsuccessful: It distributed 10.5 million pounds of food in 2021, averaging about 737,627 meals each month. In a part of the world wracked by poverty and pandemic, it answered the call throughout the crisis. People worked through vacations and days off; badly needed if not life-giving food deliveries were made on weekends. Sacrifices, big and small, were real.
“I’m so proud of us and our staff,” said Food Depot Deputy Director Jill Dixon, assessing the past two years. “The Food Depot came and stood up for the community. And I stand by that. But it doesn’t mean we can’t do it better.”
And so, with those words echoing every day, comes a very large and daunting next step. With plenty of introspection and little fanfare, The Food Depot basically tore up its old model of operation and said, more or less: Let’s really aim big.
In the coming months and years, The Food Depot — its fiscal year ’22 budget is $8.1 million — plans to change how it operates, transforming from an organization that largely provided “indirect service” to one that aggressively and strategically seeks out hunger in a hands-on way with better-aimed efforts.
In short, The Food Depot is not merely going to deliver food, Dixon said. It’s going to seek more information from its clients about what the “right” food is and creatively figure out ways to make sure those offerings get into the right hands at the right time.
Coming in July, to Española: the launch of a free grocery store concept that will have items hungry people can select as if they were going to Smith’s or Albertsons. That doesn’t mean Casita de Comida will have the selection a regular store would provide, but it will offer more options and opportunities to those who need them. The pilot, assuming it’s successful, could roll out at a later date to other cities as well, including Santa Fe, Las Vegas, N.M., and Raton.
Coming in 2023: a contraption known as Foodmobile Dos, the next generation of the depot’s Big Blue Bus that delivered food to hungry communities in the area. The bus is nice, Dixon says, but the next iteration is a custom-ordered semi-trailer, with 900 square feet of interior space that can serve 250 households as soon as it pulls into a parking lot, or in the case of a lot of Northern New Mexico locales, dirt road.
Under a new strategic plan, approved by The Food Depot’s board of directors, the new way of doing business is extensive and more involved than just those two examples, Dixon said. But it’s indicative of the changes — both in thought and action — wrought by the pandemic.
Dixon said the first signs that change would be coming arrived when many of The Food Depot’s partners — often, nonprofits that relied on older volunteers to take Food Depot offerings and get them to clients — could not actually deliver the food due to the health risks.
“We ran into the ‘How is food going to get to Mora County this month?’ thing,” Dixon recounted. “If the one person who executes it gets COVID, what do you do?”
But there were other signs as well. One came home to Dixon as she spoke with an elderly woman about a food distribution during the pandemic. The woman was grateful and thankful because she, like all too many in this country, didn’t have another option. But the apples Dixon provided? She couldn’t eat them because of the state of her teeth.
“It makes you take a step back,” Dixon said. “We had done so much in terms of logistics … we’d loaded thousands of pounds of food. But never for a second did I think: Is this food right for the people we’re serving?”
Going forward, she said, The Food Depot plans to talk with its food recipients, hear them out, about the food they need, not just the food they get. Simple questions, such as, “If you could choose 10 items, what would they be?” could help the organization make better choices on where, when and how to help. And with the difficulties faced by nonprofits during the pandemic, The Food Depot may have to lead the charge on hunger, not just be the armory.
Northern New Mexico’s food bank is not the first in the country to give this new reality a whirl; the ideas have been tried outside the state. But in a place where hurdles are high and real, the thought that The Food Depot would eschew safety for ambition is laudable. Not everyone would try it.
“Our discomfort,” Dixon replies, “is in the best interest of people who are trusting us.”
Phill Casaus is editor of The New Mexican
