Dear Care and Share Partner Agency,
We want to make sure we are in communication with you about the efforts we’re taking here at Care and Share Food Bank around COVID-19. We continue to work with our partner agencies to provide food throughout Southern Colorado, and we have a team in place monitoring and responding to the situation. Thank you for your partnership to provide nutritious food to neighbors in need during this critical time.
The safety and well-being of our partner agencies and neighbors in need is top priority. Because we rely on your partnership, we’re taking several proactive measures and ask for your support.
- All agency sites:
- Contact your Care and Share Regional Manager immediately if your site plans to close or cancel deliveries and/or pick ups. If closing, let us know when you are closing and when you plan to reopen. Care and Share is continuing deliveries and pick up orders unless notified by an agency.
- Determine your own safety precautions for your site. If you have additional precautions, please post in a visible area for neighbors in need accessing your site. We encourage you to conduct distributions as drive thru where possible.
- We are determining feasibility of ordering t-shirt bags and gloves for agencies that choose to pre-bag food in order to minimize contact. At this time, we cannot guarantee that vendors will have bags and gloves available for purchase. Please note Care and Share can order on your behalf and we will invoice your agency for the cost. Contact us at agencies@careandshare.org to make a request.
- Submit required reports as usual through Agency Express for non-USDA programs and agencies@careadshare.org for USDA programs.
- If your site is a food pantry distributing non-USDA food: you may temporarily suspend sign in through April 23, 2020. Your site may make verbal confirmation with neighbors accessing your site of household composition information, i.e. asking for number of adults, children, and seniors in the family. All sites are still required to submit reports of neighbor counts through Agency Express.
- If your site distributes CSFP: please note a few recent program changes that may be helpful during this period. First, recertification signatures are not required. Second, recertification forms may be completed over the phone and the recertification period is extended from 6 months to one year. To mitigate contact with vulnerable populations, the Colorado Department of Human Services has temporarily suspended obtaining signatures at box pick up/distribution each month. All sites are still required to submit reports of participant counts at agencies@careandshare.org.
- If your site distributes TEFAP food and/or TEFAP trade mitigation food: currently neighbors in need are still required to sign to receive these foods. Care and Share has requested a waiver for this requirement from the Colorado Department of Human Services. We will notify you as soon as we know more. All sites are still required to submit reports of participant counts at agencies@careandshare.org.
As this situation continues to evolve, we will share updates and information. Please click the button below to visit Care and Share's website for updates.
