This is one of a series of stories about the nonprofit agencies that receive money from The Gazette/El Pomar Foundation Empty Stocking Fund campaign that runs through the holidays.

Jorga Harrison has 11 hungry family members to feed each night. With the help of Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, Harrison was able to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for them in the summer, and that has helped establish a pattern of healthy eating habits.

“It is a lot of mouths to feed,” she said.

According to the Empty Stocking Fund website, fillanemptystocking.org, Care and Share provides emergency and supplemental food to those in need throughout southern Colorado. It also provides more than 300 partner agencies with supplies for those in need.

Harrison has two biological children, two who have been adopted from foster care and five who are foster children. While Harrison doesn’t always have nine children, she rarely says no to those in need. Harrison said that some of these children come from traumatic backgrounds.

“Things that a lot of us take for granted, like fresh pineapple, they think of as (cartoon character) SpongeBob’s house,” she said.

Care and Share helped save Harrison $75 a week in groceries during the warmer months and her family ate much better. The nonprofit set up a free farmer’s market twice a week at local schools and, since Harrison had many to feed, would let her take extra. Care and Share allowed Harrison to bring better options to the table.

“It is very important to me to provide healthy food,” she said.