4Eagle Ranch foundation helps feed Vail Valley seniors

Not many people know that 4 Eagle Ranch is a foundation that puts money from its commercial ventures into community efforts, including helping local seniors.

One of those efforts includes delivering about 60 meals per week, along with groceries, to older residents up and down the valley. The meals are prepared every Wednesday in the kitchen at the Edwards Interfaith Chapel. Some of the ingredients are sourced from The Community Market.

The foundation is funded by the weddings, graduations and corporate events held at the ranch. That makes the operation unique in the valley in that it doesn’t seek donations from other sources.

“We’re there to serve the community,” co-owner Julie Barry said.

The foundation started when Barry’s husband, Michael, purchased the ranch operation in 2011, although the 1,000-acre parcel has long been owned by Denver Water.

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Michael and Julie have been together for the past eight years, and she’s an enthusiastic partner in the operation.

The foundation has long worked to aid the county’s older residents, the fastest-growing portion of the local population.

The senior program’s volunteers get together every Wednesday morning in the kitchen of the Edwards Interfaith Chapel to build meals and fill grocery bags for clients. Pastor Dan Matney of the New Life Assembly of God in Avon has helped lead the senior program since its inception in 2013.

The program expanded in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and people couldn’t leave their homes. Volunteers drive up and down the valley, from Vail to Dotsero, delivering a hot meal and a bag of groceries.

Longtime valley resident John Gulick said he’s been a volunteer driver for about the past six months. He comes to Edwards every Wednesday, helps bag up the grocercies along with the meal — spaghetti and meatballs and a salad on this day.

In addition to delivering food, the 4 Eagle Foundation provides other services to local seniors, including help with gardening and handyman services.

“We do anything to keep a senior off a ladder,” Barry said.

Carly Rietmann, the manager of Eagle County Healthy Aging, said the 4 Eagle Foundation is doing good work, but she worries a bit about the possible duplication of services. The county also does meal delivery, but four days a week instead of just one. And, Rietmann added, she’s talked to Barry about turning over driving seniors to medical appointments to the 4 Eagle Foundation, which recruits drivers from local churches.

Rietmann said county officials are now starting work on the 2026 Healthy Aging roadmap for the county. Barry’s now part of that roadmap’s advisory committee.

“We’re working together and communicating,” Rietmann said.

In the kitchen in Edwards, Matney said there’s sometimes confusion on the street level. But, he noted, that’s quickly worked out.

“The seniors let us know from time to time if there’s too much of this (or) too much of that,” he said. And, he added, if someone has Meals on Wheels coming, they’ll let foundation members know that the Wednesday meal can be delivered to a neighbor.

Barry said the 4 Eagle Foundation follows an “unusual model,” of which the senior program is just one part.

“We have a small, but amazing team,” Barry said. “The more money we make, the more we give away.”