Good afternoon friends of Care and Share!

Our USDA Programs Manager, Denise Meredith, has been offered an amazing position with the Colorado Department of Education’s Office of School Nutrition supporting school breakfast, lunch and summer feeding programs that she will begin on February 1st.

Denise started at Care and Share in September 2012 as the Cooking Matters Coordinator.  We knew from the day she started that she was a true food banker at heart.  When the USDA position became available in July of 2013, she eagerly applied for the position and we knew she was the perfect person for the job.  Denise has been improving and polishing the TEFAP and CSFP programs ever since. Below are just a few of her accomplishments.

• Expanded TEFAP from 1 county to 31 counties
• Increased CSFP load from 400 to 3,000 seniors
• Created standardized monitoring forms for TEFAP and CSFP
• Created standardized templates for CSFP and TEFAP that have been adopted by the state for all food banks to use
• Has received and fulfilled numerous requests by the state to speak at different USDA conferences

We sincerely thank Denise for all of her work to ensure that more people in more places throughout Southern Colorado have/will have access to the food they need to thrive. Denise you (and your contagious laugh) will be missed!

We are pleased to announce that our very own Brianna Victor has been hired as the new USDA Programs Manager.  Brianna first served as an intern with the Cooking Matters Program in Pueblo.  Ironically, when Denise moved out of the Cooking Matters position into the USDA position in August of 2013, we hired Brianna full time in the Cooking Matters Coordinator position here in Colorado Springs.  

In November 2015, Cooking Matters Colorado awarded Care and Share a third coordinator position and we promoted Brianna to the Cooking Matters Program Manager at that time.  Since that time, Brianna has worked hard to ensure that she and her team meet or exceed their course goals, provide gold standard courses and train and retain top notch volunteers. She is always one of the first people to raise her hand when help is needed.  We are excited to offer her this next step in her career. 

Thanks for reading about our exciting new updates!