Fresh Food Connect

*YOUR IMPACT IS DOUBLED: All donations received through December 31, 2026 will be doubled through a matching grant*

Giving season starts in the garden

Here's one of our favorite stories. A gardener brought a donation to Community Food Share and felt a little embarrassed by how small it was. The staff? They rushed right over, thrilled to see what had come out of that garden.

That's Fresh Food Connect in a nutshell. Every harvest counts, and every gardener is welcome. Help us reach our $45,000 goal this Colorado Gives season. Every gift through December 31 is doubled.

Photo: Mike, West Washington Park Community Garden

The Need

• Each year, roughly 1 in 7 people in the US experiences food insecurity - 13.4 million of these people are children. 
• At the same time, 1 in 3 households grows food at home or in community gardens - most grow more than they need or want. 

Our Solution

The Fresh Food Connect free mobile app connects thousands of home and community gardeners directly to a local hunger relief organization. We encourage community connection for gardeners, while providing a link to delicious and nutritious produce for those facing food insecurity.

Environmental and Economic Impact

Co2eq : 356 metric tons kept out of the atmosphere

Water conserved : 3.6 million gallons 

Meals supported : 300,000 meals recovered

Grocery savings: $1.8 million 

Our Gardeners

We asked Denver gardener Becca K. to finish the sentence "Donating my produce makes me feel..." Her answer:

"...like part of the solution."

"When I donated to the local food pantry, I realized that the people who need fresh produce are my own neighbors."

- Cyndi H., Fort Collins gardener

Mike with lavender from West Washington Park Community Garden. Photo: Mike, West Washington Park Community Garden

Our Operators

We call our hunger relief partners Operators. They're the folks who take a bag of backyard tomatoes and get it to a neighbor's table. In Golden, one gardener showed up at Robinson Place with lettuce and tomatoes she'd picked that morning. The Archway Communities team told us, "We do not get a lot of truly fresh food like that."

"People aren't only donating produce because of the excess but because they want to share their bounty in a meaningful way."

- Focus Points Family Resource Center, Denver

Wait, what is that? (In the best way)

"You can hear the excitement ripple through the line when someone spots a vegetable they haven't seen since childhood."

- Kaizen Food Rescue

Photo: Mike, West Washington Park Community Garden

Our Mission

Our Vision: Homegrown food within reach. We believe all people have a right to nutritious food, and we envision a local food system that brings homegrown food within reach of all.

Our Mission: To grow a more local and resilient food system by connecting gardeners with their communities.

Our Work: Fresh Food Connect applies technology to create the capacity to connect gardeners with their communities, and strengthen local food systems.

Our Background 

In 2016, a group of forward-thinkers from three Denver organizations came together to test a new idea that would become Fresh Food Connect. If gardeners knew where to donate extra produce would they? *The answer was resoundingly yes!*

Today, Fresh Food Connect is available to gardeners throughout Colorado, and has scaled into 18 additional states. Our mobile app technology has made it possible to scale with intent and consistency - one neighborhood at a time. Our network has grown to 6,000 gardeners in 2026, and this year they have donated almost 94,000 pounds of produce to support community hunger relief.