Food Drives at Sister Carmen: From Massive to Minuscule, They All Have a Monumental Impact

We at Sister Carmen receive thousands of pounds of food donations from hundreds of different places; from local grocery stores and family farms, to small community gardens and restaurants. We collect, process, and distribute upwards of 200,000 pounds of food every month to families in Lafayette. Sister Carmen depends on the kindness of our community to support our efforts. And we don’t just rely on grocery stores and big companies, but many involved and motivated people from all over Boulder County!

Many of our donations are from private individuals and groups coming together to run food drives that help stock our shelves. These drives are not only crucial at bringing in literally tons of food every year, but they’re also a great way for people to get involved on a personal level. Running a food drive brings us together as a community and helps break down barriers.

So far this year, we have received over 150,000 pounds of food through food drives that are run by individuals and organizations.  These people see the important work Sister Carmen does for literally thousands of people a year, they understand the need that we have, and they work to fill the gap between what we receive from other sources and what we need to fill our shelves.

Often, food drives are run by larger organizations, and we will see a huge impact from groups of 100 or more. Techtonic, a local software-development company based in Boulder ran their very first food drive for us in October, a time of year that we tend to have low inventory in our food bank. They raised 514 pounds of food for our families! After such a successful drive, we hope they will do many more.

One of Techtonic’s employees mentioned their reasoning for running a drive this year, “Techtonic made the decision to hold a food drive because community is important to us and we wanted to be sure that we were taking care of ours. Our mission supports changing people’s lives and we felt it was important to give back and support the people in our area.”

Additionally, we also have schools and faith-based organizations that bring in large hauls. Flatirons Community Church in Lafayette holds a major food drive for us in the spring that brings in about half of all our food drive donations every year. Recently, Flatirons also started to run a Turkey Drive for us in November, where, this season, we collected about 200 turkeys and over $15,000 in cash and gift cards!

Likewise, Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette ran their annual drive this month and collected thousands of pounds of food to stock our shelves! Peak to Peak students compete, each school level against the other, all working together to bring in food and other items that our families might need. These drives are crucial to our ability to serve our families and are what help us get through many of the leaner times.

But we can’t forget about the smaller groups and the collective impact they make. Many of our food drives come are run by just a collection of friends or one committed person who puts in a lot of work to bring in an impressive haul. That’s what Keith Summers does every year when he runs his drive.

Keith works tirelessly to collect non-perishable food while also running an online GoFundMe to collect money that he shops with; this year he was able to donate over 700 pounds! This is really impactful because he asks what we need specifically at that moment and then goes and buys just that. He is able to bring in many high need items that we tend to run low on, such as cooking oil, flour, fruit, and even diapers.  Keith has a deep connection to giving, and his annual food drive is no different. He started his canned food drive 8 years ago, and it has evolved over time.

“My father’s birthday is in October and we used to do the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as balloon holders. My pops was a quiet guy around us but it was the one time of year he was himself. He passed in 2005 from a heart attack. I was feeling a bit bummed out, and I decided to do something in his memory. I posted an event on [Facebook] for people to clean out their pantries and I would collect their cans and drop them off at the Boulder Homeless Shelter. It felt great to see everyone’s support and even better to drop the supplies off knowing they would make an impact in people’s lives. I decided to switch the drop off to Sister Carmen to help make an impact in the community where I live. Each year, I try to think of ways to make it easy for people to donate and to create community around the holidays. I believe we are stronger by strength in numbers and that people want to support others. I just provide the forum to help bring us all together for a good cause. I honestly love seeing how people come together to make it all happen. People give me credit, but honestly, it is about all over us creating community and working together.”

At Sister Carmen Community Center, we are so lucky to have such committed and kind people in our county. Without the hard work of all our donors, we would not be successful in meeting the needs of our many families. If you would like to run a drive at your business, school, community center, or family gathering, we would love for you to join in our efforts! We are working hard every day to leverage the amazing community we are part of in Boulder County and get all those we can involved in what we do.

If you would like to start a food drive for Sister Carmen, it is easier than ever! You can now access our online registration on our Food-Drive page, we have a list of most needed-items that will change based on current needs, and we also have many resources in our toolkit to help your drive to be successful. We love to work with any size group and we appreciate everything from the largest, group efforts to the smallest, one-person hustles; they all have a huge impact on the lives of our families and bring us all closer together as humans!