Care and Share doesn’t operate many food pantries – the Colorado Springs-based nonprofit mostly provides food for other food pantries – but the three that it operates in southern Colorado have made a huge difference for Richard and Cassandra.

The Sunnyside Market that Care and Share operates in Fountain gives Richard a place to meet and talk with customers as he hands out grocery carts and helps customers load food into their cars. The market also provides Cassandra with groceries so she can afford to pay for chemotherapy and radiation treatments for bone cancer. Both are clients of the nonprofit and are identified only by their first names to protect their privacy.

“I have at least 10 people every shift that I volunteer for tell me that if not for Care and Share they would go hungry,” said Richard, who is retired from a 20-year career in the Army medical corps but also worked in the corrections industry afterwards. “I went to the market twice after it opened to do some shopping and I thought ‘why not volunteer; they need the help.’ It is one of the best things happening in Fountain. This is the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.”

Cassandra had reached the point where she faced the choice of “either paying my copay or getting groceries. I don’t know that I would be able to feed my kids without it. I would have had to take stuff to the pawn shop to be able to afford groceries”.

The markets are a small part of Care and Share’s operations, which are staffed by 70 employees and 6,000 volunteers and are spread across 47,000 square miles in 29 southern Colorado counties. The nonprofit provided 23.2 million pounds of food, enough to make 19 million meals, in the fiscal year ending June 30 to nearly 300 food pantries in the southern half of the state through distribution centers in Colorado Springs, Pueblo and one that opened in May in Alamosa.

Care and Share began opening the markets two years ago to serve “food deserts,” or neighborhoods and areas that have no grocery stores or food pantries to provide fresh food for low-income individuals and families. Besides Fountain, the nonprofit also operates markets in Pueblo and one that opened in October at the Pikes Peak Family Success Center in southeast Colorado Springs, and it also operates two mobile food pantries in semitrucks, with a third planned for next year.

The agency receives food from the federal Emergency Food Assistance program, recovers surplus food from about 80 grocery retailers, benefits from food drives by schools, services clubs and other organizations and uses funds from state and foundation grants to buy low-cost food. Every dollar donated to Care and Share produces five meals, including money the nonprofit receives from the Empty Stocking Fund, where it was among the first five agencies to receive funding.

Care and Share sponsors an annual food drive, called Harvest of Love, at schools in the Colorado Springs and Pueblo areas – Nov. 1-17 this year – and collects turkeys during its “Take a Turkey to Work Day” at King Soopers stores in both areas – Nov. 17 this year.

“We have received millions of dollars and helped hundreds of thousands of people through the Empty Stocking Fund. It has been one of the most important partners we have,” said Nate Springer, who became Care and Share’s CEO last year. The agency has been an Empty Stocking Fund partner since the campaign moved after the first few years from helping individuals and families directly to working through partner agencies.

Care and Share traces its roots to 1972, when a catholic nun, Sister Dominique Pisciotta, and five volunteers who worked with several local churches to open two years later what would become Care and Share in a downtown garage. The nonprofit will mark its 50th anniversary next year – Care and Share was incorporated in October 1974 – with a major celebration at its Colorado Springs distribution center for donors, volunteers, partner agencies and others.

To learn more visit: www.careandshare.org.

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