Nationally, food insecurity has increased to over 14 percent as of November 2025 from 13.7 percent in 2024. In Colorado, almost three-quarters of a million people, including over 170,000 children, experience food insecurity, meaning they don't have enough to eat and don't know where their next meal will come from.
That's 1 in 8 Coloradans, including older adults in cities and rural areas, facing food insecurity driven by rising costs for food, housing and health care, along with shrinking federal funds.
In southern Colorado, hunger is shaped as much by distance and infrastructure as by income.
On a chilly November afternoon, The Mobile Market pulls into the bucolic town of Silver Cliff, a rural southern Colorado town in the Wet Mountain Valley. For people who lack transportation or face mobility challenges, they no longer have to travel long distances just to buy healthy food.
Care and Share's Mobile Food Pantry program (aka The Mobile Market) isn't just a food distribution stop — it's a "grocery store on wheels" designed to bring fresh produce, pantry staples, and choice directly into communities with limited access to food. Places like Silver Cliff, Ignacio, La Jara, Del Norte, San Luis, and Crestone all benefit from Care and Share.
Care and Share began back in 1972 when a nun, Sister Dominique Pisciott, saw a huge need among struggling community members. What began in a two-car garage distributing food baskets has grown into an operation that now delivers millions of pounds of food across nearly 30 counties in Colorado. The nonprofit has over 290 partners, including companies like Target and Sam's Club, which are big donors to the three distribution centers in Southern Colorado: Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Alamosa.
" The mobile market is designed to go to smaller communities and have people be able to choose what they would like from the side of the truck," explained Chris Fenn, Care and Share's Mobile Market Manager. "They actually shop down the side of the truck."
Many people assume food insecurity is an urban issue, but some people in rural communities, like Silver Cliff, also struggle because good grocery stores, services, and transportation aren't easy to come by. Explore this map of hunger statistics in Colorado and around the country.
"It's tough times, and people need the help," Silver Cliff's Mayor Buck Wenzel told me.
Wenzel describes the arrangement as a win for everyone involved. Residents gain access to fresh food, and Silver Cliff strengthens a vital community service without bearing the cost. Each Mobile Market stop delivers about $1,700 worth of groceries, fully funded by Care and Share. The town simply provides a safe site and volunteers to assist with distribution.
"So my clerks, my staff, some of my trustees – we always show up," Wenzel said. "I'm glad we can provide this."
The Mobile Market is a visible, real response to an infrastructure gap, bringing food to the community rather than requiring the community to travel. Those who previously had to rely on rides from family or make costly trips, or those who cannot leave their homes due to post-traumatic stress disorder, now have nutritious food come to them.
Rebecca Cardinell volunteers with local food banks, like Care and Share, Loaves and Fishes, and Mercy Today Ministries in Fremont County. Cardinell and her sister often deliver food in the mountains – in Cotopaxi, Howard, all the way to Salida several times a month.
"They're hurting. They're without food. They have nothing in their cupboards and I can't, in good conscience, just go home and eat, knowing that they don't have anything," Cardinell lamented.
Organizers say there's sometimes a stigma associated with food pantries, but The Mobile Market allows customers to have dignity and autonomy — as people can choose their food rather than receive whatever is handed out.
"From what I've seen, especially with The Mobile Market, the way that we're set up, it feels much more like a community event than a handout. Everybody's welcome. Nobody's turned away," explained Fenn. "And there's a lot of dignity to it. Everybody's treated equally."
Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including KDNK.