Digging up the latest dirt on Food to Power's composting service reveals that the acquisition of Brown's Greens -- a Colorado Springs-based urban agriculture and composting company -- earlier this year doubled the number of households participating in Food to Power's composting service to 600.

And over the next three years, the charitable urban farm that works to "cultivate a healthy, equitable food system" plans to enroll more participants for its curbside pickup or drop off locations of kitchen scraps, paper and yard wastes, which in turn become compost, said Patience Kabwasa, executive director.

"We'll expand our composting efforts and strengthen the direction we're already going in," she said.

That's part of a new 2025-2027 strategic plan, which the organization will unveil at its 10th annual Harvest Celebration.

Care and Share prepares for 50th anniversary celebration with special promotions

The event will be 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday night at its headquarters called the Hillside Hub, at 1090 S. Institute St.

Along with varied food and drink from local farms, restaurants, breweries and wineries, the festival will also feature a raffle and silent auction, and live music with a dance floor.

Entertaining interactive stations such as a compost photo booth, a smoothie bicycle that produces the refreshment by pedaling, a sourdough bread-baking operation, a garden seed table, screen printing, games, face painting, and arts and crafts.

Tickets are $30 to $40 at https://foodtopower.salsalabs.org/2024HarvestCelebration/index.html/.

Also this year, the organization reached 1 million pounds of food scrapped and saved from entering the landfill since Food to Power started its composting program in 2018, Kabwasa said.

Materials collected become compost at one of three facilities -- Don's Garden Shop, WM Midway Composting facility or Food to Power's Hillside Hub. Members receive a share of garden-ready compost in the spring and fall.

Refuse collected last year alone was turned into 63 tons of compost, which in addition to fertilizing soil also helped feed livestock, Kabwasa said.

The 2023 landfill diversion reduced CO2 emissions by 45 tons, which equates to driving eight gasoline-powered cars for one year, according to Kabwasa.

Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening.

Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters.

But it's just one of several programs Food to Power offers.

New grants to build community resilience for 5 Colorado Springs organizations

Its signature activity that originally founded the organization as Colorado Springs Food Rescue in 2013 retrieves fresh "recovered" food from 12 area grocery stores and other markets, such as Whole Foods, Maverik and Kangaroo Coffee, and redistributes the edibles to needy neighbors as well as other pantries.

Last year, the organization recovered and redistributed nearly 400,000 pounds of fresh food and grew another 6,300 pounds of fresh vegetables on its urban farm at the Hillside Hub.

Some 14,000 unique individuals in need received the food, Kabwasa said.

The Hillside Hub offers twice-weekly free food giveaways, an on-site farm stand and free community-wide classes on cooking, nutrition, how to garden, mushroom cultivation and other topics at its indoor and outdoor center, where the Harvest Celebration will be held.

Food to Power has made a noticeable difference in the Hillside neighborhood, said Josh Gainey, administrator for Hillside Community Center. Food to Power often partners with local agencies, including the community center.

"We do twice monthly distribution; they're providing twice weekly food distribution, which is huge for this neighborhood, where there's not anywhere within walking distance for folks to get their groceries," Gainey said. "The fact that they have a full-fledged farm and are able to provide the programming -- it's had a huge impact."

More southern Colorado residents seeking help at food pantries

The organization is pressing ahead to reach this year's goals, which include composting 250 tons of food scraps, which would constitute four times the amount of last year's effort.

Food to Power also is launching a no-cost refrigerated food pantry, and increasing food production and distribution.

While the farm occupies 1.5 aces of the organization's property, another 1.5 acres potentially could be developed, Kabwasa said.

"We are still in the different stages of determining what is the best use of that property," she said. "We do have the ability to leverage and expand through partnerships."

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE GAZETTE