Serving the community since 1926
WEEK OF NOVEMBER 9, 2023
VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 49
$2
Camp Hale monument celebrates
We Don’t Waste expands its services throughout Denver More neighborhoods where access to fresh food is scarce will be served BY NATALIE KERR SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
signs helping to educate visitors about the 53,804-acre monument, Colorado’s ninth national monument and its first since Browns Canyon in 2015. The idea is to create a place to learn and remember. A monument that celebrates the Ute tribes that have gathered in the headwaters of the Eagle River atop Tennessee Pass for centuries as well as the 10th Mountain Division soldiers who trained there during World War II and returned to Colorado to seed the country’s vibrant outdoor recreation industry.
When Sue Liming was a teacher at Goldrick Elementary School in Denver’s Athmar Park neighborhood, she was keenly aware of how many students didn’t have access to healthy, affordable food. Combined with her food service experiences seeing tons of food thrown away each night, finding We Don’t Waste was just what she needed. “It married my two passions of taking care of people who need it and not wasting stuff,” Liming said. We Don’t Waste is one of the largest food recovery and distribution services in Colorado. Arlan Preblud founded the organization in 2009, picking up leftover food from caterers and delivering it to nearby nonprofits in his Volvo. Now, the organization delivers food to more than 100 hunger-relief organizations, and is continuing to expand its services with mobile programs and education programs. “There’s food over here, and there’s a need, let’s put them together — that’s what I did,” Preblud said. “When you stop to think about it, it’s a very simple process. You take food that’s destined for the landfill – nutritious and good food – and you give it to people that don’t have any food.” We Don’t Waste has identified 50 Denver neighborhoods that qualify as food deserts, which are places where access to fresh, affordable healthy food is low and poverty rates are typically above average. A few years ago, We Don’t Waste compared a map of Denver food deserts to the map of where it was providing services, and found its services weren’t reaching many of the communities that needed them, Preblud said.
SEE CAMP HALE, P4
SEE DON’T WASTE, P2
President Joe Biden, surrounded by U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, back left, and White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams, back center, hands over the pen to Francis Lovett, far right, after signing the papers to designate Camp Hale, a World War II era training site, as a national monument, Oct. 12, 2022, outside Leadville. Robert Shoyer, center, and Lovett PHOTO BY HUGH CAREY THE COLORADO SUN trained at Camp Hale as soldiers. BY JASON BLEVINS THE COLORADO SUN
Francis Lovett has a vision for Camp Hale, where in 1942 he trained for winter battle in Italy as a 10th Mountain Division soldier. “It must include recognition, physical recognition, by signage, astute building and careful management so it does not become a scrappy trailer park. It must not become a tourist attraction,” the 101-year-old decorated World War II veteran and lifelong educator told a committee of politicians and tribal leaders last weekend in Vail
following a visit to Camp Hale. “It must be aimed to inform the public who may stop by and see how we lived and what we lived, with good signage … that reflects the history of the 10th Mountain Division. All I hope for is true history. Shared history.” A year after President Joe Biden traveled to Colorado to announce the Camp Hale – Continental Divide National Monument, a plan is taking shape for the historic location. It won’t offer a lot of tourist amenities. There won’t be a sprawling visitor center. There will be a lot of
VOICES: 10 | CALENDAR: 15
DENVERHERALD.NET • A PUBLICATION OF COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
‘UNIDOS NOT SEPARADOS’
New mural celebrates Mexico-U.S. relations P12