Eagle County community rallies to support The Community Market at a time of great need
The Community Market now sees 4,500 weekly visitors. That number is not going down
Vail Health/Courtesy photo
When the federal government shutdown in October, it impacted more Eagle County families than ever. The Community Market, which provides healthy food to Eagle County residents in need and is operated by the Eagle Valley Community Foundation, saw a 14% increase in utilization in the last several weeks as families losing SNAP benefits and federal workers going without pay accessed the resource to keep food on the table.
“The Community Market does way more than just providing food to those that are in need,” said Melina Valsecia, the executive director of the Eagle Valley Community Foundation.
The Community Market has two brick-and-mortar locations, in Edwards and Gypsum, and hosts several mobile markets each week to bring food to people who need it. The market also stocks food closets in schools for hungry kids and provides backpacks of food for kids to take home on the weekends.
“A lot of people count on us to not only provide healthy food for their families but also to lower the worries or the anxiety” about where food will come from, Valsecia said.
Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough nutritious food to live a healthy life.
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“We might not think about how we have food insecurity in the valley, but we do,” Valsecia said. “We want to let people know that it’s a reality in our beautiful valley that there are people that are running out of food for the week.”
The Community Market serves anyone who worries about not being able to afford quality food. Many of the individuals who visit The Community Market work two or three jobs, but due to the high cost of living in Eagle County, still do not earn enough to cover rent, transportation, child care and food.
“The Community Market is always working six days a week, up and down valley, and the mobile markets, trying to take that barrier or that worry away so they can live their best life and parents can go to work without worrying and kids can get the nutritious food they need to grow and develop,” Valsecia said. “Nobody should feel ashamed in our valley to come to The Community Market.”
How the government shutdown impacted The Community Market
The Community Market currently serves 4,500 customers per week, 500 more than before the government shutdown.
Individuals, nonprofits, businesses and local government stepped up to fill the gap, donating time, shelf-stable foods and money to support The Community Market’s operations.
“I want to thank the whole community for responding to this government shutdown,” Valsecia said. “We saw a huge increase in demand. But the Eagle (River) Valley is so resilient that we had a lot of response from donors that came our way.”
Increased donations from food drives covered almost all the dry goods that The Community Market needed, meaning staff could focus purchasing power on fresh foods and proteins. More food increased the need for storage, and Vail Health donated additional storage space.
“As a community, we should be proud,” Valsecia said.
From experience during the pandemic, Valsecia said she does not expect utilization of The Community Market to decline back to pre-government shutdown numbers, even with the end of the shutdown.
“It’s important to let people know that, OK, the government is open and that doesn’t mean that the numbers will go down,” Valsecia said.
Donations and volunteers will still be needed going forward.
“The reality in our valley is that it’s really hard, expensive, to live in already,” Valsecia said. “When there is a crisis like this is when you realize that, ‘I need help.’ And then when you come to the market, people love coming to the market because we just take the barrier, the shame away.”
The Community Market staff are trained to provide “excellent customer service,” Valsecia said. “We do a lot of listening. We listen to the hardship of people going through crisis or why they are here … that’s why we think the numbers won’t go down — because they finally came to us for help. And they are coming back every week.”
“We always will need the support of those that can support us with volunteer hours, with food drives and bringing awareness,” Valsecia said. “It’s not a problem, but it’s a reality in our valley.”
Vail Health is one of the local organizations that is hosting a food drive for The Community Market.
“We’ve had a long relationship with The Community Market,” said Craig Cohn, Vail Health’s chief real estate development officer and senior vice president, who spearheaded the effort to donate to The Community Market this fall. “They function out of one of our facilities (the Edwards Community Health Campus), so we get to see the great work that they do and firsthand, we get to see on busy days how busy they can be. Supporting that is really important.”
The food drive began in mid-November and will run through the December holidays. All of Vail Health’s larger facilities have food drive bins.
The health system is capitalizing on its central facility locations and transportation staff to collect and deliver food supplies.
“Because we have the infrastructure to help, we’re helping,” Cohn said. “We will continue to collect food and drive it as long as those bins keep getting filled up.”
Vail Health has a tradition of hosting two holiday meals for its 600 staff members across all of its facilities.
“As we’ve seen lines at The Community Market get longer and the need become more and more significant, we were thinking internally, what more could we do to help the community that we serve,” Cohn said.
This year, Vail Health leadership posed a question to staff: Would they like to donate the funds that would normally go toward one of their holiday meals to The Community Market? Seventy-seven percent of staff members voted in favor.
“We do see that the cost of living continues to be one of the biggest challenges, not just for our staff but for working staff across the valley,” Cohn said.
Food security falls under economic stability, a social determinant of health — a nonmedical factor that influences health outcomes.
“What are some of the drivers toward mental health challenges, behavioral health needs? Food scarcity is one of those challenges that can really turn a person’s world upside down,” Cohn said.
Families who utilize The Community Market are reporting improved nutrition and better management of health conditions.
“This is why we purchase vegetables and fruits, the fresh produce,” Valsecia said. “Now we’re starting to look at how to improve health through The Community Market.”
“We’re seeing the benefits clinically of what they’re doing on the same campus where we’re providing clinical services,” Cohn said.
Customers who visit the MIRA bus will soon be able to undergo a health screening and receive a prescription for healthy food.
How The Community Market provides food
The first time someone comes to The Community Market, they are given a reusable card they will use to check in each time they visit.
“We still need to report numbers how many people we help, but we’re not going to ask for any documentation, paychecks or anything like that,” Valsecia said. “You just come, get the card and shop and we welcome you every day.”
Customers shop at The Community Market like they would at a grocery store, selecting the produce and dried goods they need to feed their family for the week.
“We value our model of customer choice,” Valsecia said. “We are not going to give you a predetermined box with food items because we don’t want to determine what you eat. We make sure we have protein, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables. We fundraise for purchasing the healthy and fresh food items that everybody needs at home.”
The Community Market can feed an individual for a week with $10. The value customers take away from a visit to The Community Market is around $80.
“That’s why the food pantry we run is so effective,” Valsecia said.
The Community Market buys and receives in-kind donations for fresh fruits, vegetables and protein from Food Bank of the Rockies and local grocery stores. The market also has a food recovery program in which staff pick up fresh food from local stores that would otherwise go to waste. Local farmers and community gardeners also donate their surplus food.
Food drives help bring canned good and shelf-stable foods to The Community Market. In 2024, The Community Market hosted 35 food drives in partnership with local businesses and nonprofits. In 2025, the number of food drives increased to 40.
“Another way people support us is volunteering,” Valsecia said. “When we have an increase in demand, more people coming to our food pantries, we move a lot of food on a daily basis.”
Volunteer slots are currently filled through December. “People love to volunteer in our pantries,” Valsecia said.
For Thanksgiving this year, The Community Market partnered with the Vail Valley Salvation Army to deliver Thanksgiving boxes to families. The Community Market is also remaining open all week to ensure customers have access to food.
As the holiday season continues, The Community Market is turning its focus to ensuring families have food during school breaks, when kids who typically receive breakfast and lunch at school are home for those meals.
“For families this week is … a huge increase on their budget and with December breaks coming up … we are launching a fundraising campaign to support families over the holidays,” Valsecia said. “Our community is so resilient, and we are equipped to respond to any change in the environment or anything that happens to our neighbors. If we come together and work together, we are able to overcome anything that could happen. The nonprofit, the corporate businesses and (local) government, we can come together and respond to anything.”
