St. Mary’s Medical Center and Homeward Bound, through a grant from Western Community Foundation, partner to reduce food waste and help fight hunger. The grant provided food storage containers and blast cooler equipment to kick start efforts locally.

Bryan Johnson, St. Mary’s President, is proud of the important role this program serves in Western Colorado: “This program has brought together two very mission driven organizations to help people in this community who are very vulnerable.”

Since the program’s inception, St. Mary’s reports “7,100 pounds of food were consumed instead of thrown away. This equates to 4,260 meals and $9,419.67 worth of food” which has been donated to hunger relief efforts rather than thrown in the trash, destined for the landfill.