As the only health and human service organization in Northern El Paso County, Tri-Lakes Cares provides a comprehensive range of services to meet the needs of the community. King Soopers has supported this organization through the Fight Hunger bag program.
Tell us about Tri-Lakes Cares.
Our mission is to empower families and individuals to reach a better tomorrow. Tri-Lakes Cares (TLC) was founded in 1984 as a community-based food pantry. Since then, we’ve expanded to offer multiple services, but food has always been our core service. We are mostly known as a food pantry. However, we are also the only health and human service organization located in and serving Northern El Paso County. Because of this, we are often pressured to offer a variety of products and services to our community. We don’t have the luxury of focusing on one program. Instead, we must offer a wide range of programs to meet the varying needs of low-income individuals and families.
Our mission is to empower families and individuals to reach a better tomorrow.
What services do you provide to the community?
For our food services program, there’s no barrier to entry. Anyone who is food insecure can benefit from our food programs. We have a free grocery market where clients can shop like they would at a King Soopers. If you’re not a client at TLC and are just passing through town, we have emergency and traveler bags available so that no one goes hungry.
We offer a Snack Pack Program for children on free or reduced lunches in the school system. We currently send out almost 500 snack packs weekly, with five snacks in each bag, to ensure students have access to snacks. This relieves the financial burden that parents/guardians face over the weekend when their kids do not have the free or reduced meals provided by the school district.
For the November and December holidays, we offer a holiday food option. We solicit traditional items, like Thanksgiving turkeys, but we also try to honor different religious communities by considering what they might eat. When distributing those food items, we also include grocery gift cards for extra items we might not have available in our market. The goal is to make the financial burden just a little bit less so that clients can enjoy a traditional holiday meal with their families.
In addition to food, we offer financial assistance and case management programs. If people struggle to put food on the table, they probably struggle to pay other living expenses. We collaborate with a local hospital to have a nurse on-site who can assist uninsured or underinsured clients with healthcare referrals, medical counseling, access to free vision, dental and mental health services, and over-the-counter products. Additionally, our back-to-school programs ensure parents don’t have to choose between feeding their families and providing the school supplies their kiddos need. Finally, we host other agencies to offer their specialized services to our client base. Some examples of this consist of legal aid, food stamp registration, mental health counseling, and workforce readiness.
What sets Tri-Lakes Cares apart from other hunger organizations in your community?
While there are other nonprofits in the community, they do not focus on the breadth of human services that TLC offers. If someone is struggling economically, we’re the best resource in town.
Looking at the larger region, what sets our nonprofit apart is our reputation and the way we execute our programs. We provide our services using a very dignified and respectful approach. Our market mimics a mini grocery store. Our clients go through our market aisles with an actual grocery shopping cart instead of putting items in a cardboard box. They experience a self-choice model, just like at the grocery store. Our intent is to deliver a program that could have come with shame but instead is executed in a dignified way. Additionally, not having barriers to entry for food services is a huge part of what sets us apart. If you are in need, please come and get food from us; no judgment is passed.
Finally, in larger cities, you’ll have completely separate places/agencies to get food, medical care, youth programs, and senior assistance. With us, it’s all under one roof.
Please tell us a story that illustrates the good work of your organization.
Occasionally, we can accept donated vehicles and get them into the hands of clients in need of reliable transportation. We were working with a family that consisted of a mother and her three children who had recently fled a domestic violence situation. Receiving this reliable vehicle was a major step for this family as they worked towards a better future.
Sometimes, people come in for food, but a larger story unfolds once they meet with their case manager.
As another example, one of our case managers met with a single mom with Leukemia. She was facing eviction because she couldn’t pay her rent, so she came to TLC to seek assistance. She had lost her job due to layoffs, and her husband had left her and her young child without any financial assistance. This young woman was starting a new job in early January, but in the interim, TLC was able to help her stay in her home and eliminate the anxiety of eviction. We also gave her a gas card to help her get to her doctor’s appointments.
Sometimes, people come in for food, but a larger story unfolds once they meet with their case manager. It’s a blessing for us to have the breadth of resources to holistically serve each person and their family.
What is your most outstanding achievement or contribution to the community?
We are celebrating our 40th anniversary this year, which is definitely a great achievement. We started as a free food pantry and have adapted to provide a breadth of services that meet our community members’ needs. TLC continues to evolve as a community service nonprofit. We are proud of how well we are able to respond to the needs of the community and adapt our organization to fill those gaps with new services.
We are proud of how well we are able to respond to the needs of the community and adapt our organization to fill those gaps with new services.
What do you want people to know about your organization?
We are more than just a food pantry. If you need help with housing support, medical needs, school supplies, holiday gifts, self-sufficiency programs, utility bill assistance, food and more… we’re here.
There are probably a lot of community members who think we are here for people who are worse off than they are. However, our income eligibility guidelines are higher than those of many other food pantries because we realize the needs in our community look different. For somebody on the cusp, we’d recommend they not make a judgment on their own as to whether they would qualify for our services.
We want to encourage high utilization of our food programs. It may sound counterintuitive to encourage high utilization of a program, but the more people shop in our free grocery market, the more they can save on their grocery bills. This means they can use those savings to pay their rent. We can get food donated from King Soopers and our other community partners, but we can’t get rent donated.
How are you using the funds you’ve received from the King Soopers Fight Hunger bag program?
We will use the funds for our food programs. Specifically, we will use it to purchase the items we do not commonly get donated. Meat and dairy are two of the areas we struggle with the most. We receive donated canned goods often, but ground beef, chicken, milk, and eggs are much harder to acquire through donations.
From 2022 to 2023, we saw a 44% increase in the usage of our market. The clientele we serve are the first to be impacted by an economic downturn and the last to recover. As the cost of living goes up, the benefits they’re getting from the government are not keeping pace. Until the cost of living goes down, our clientele will struggle to make ends meet. Because of this, trying to keep people stable in their homes has become more of a challenge.
Is there anything you’d like to add?
Our clients are the end recipients of the proceeds from this program, as we turn these dollars right back into spending at the local grocery stores to get the milk, cheese, eggs, and meats we need. It all goes directly into the hands of the community members most in need. We want to express our sincere gratitude for being a community partner with the local King Soopers and a recipient of this important program.
Interview with:
Executive Director
Food Programs Director
Published March 4, 2024.