Change Matrix (CM) has just completed work on the Healthy Food for Denver’s Kids (HFDK) Initiative! As the evaluation and learning partner over the past several years, CM helped the HFDK Commission to develop its vision, funding strategy, and an evaluation approach to measure change and impact over time. HFDK was established through Denver Ballot Measure 302, which increased taxes to establish a fund for healthy food and food-based education for Denver’s children and youth. Since its launch in 2020, HFDK has distributed $66.5 million dollars to 95 organizations through competitive grants to agencies of local government, public schools in Denver, and nonprofits with an emphasis on serving low-income and under-served youth. Over three years, these grantees served over 31 million meals and snacks to children, youth, and families; harvested more than 200,000 pounds of foods; and provided 25,000 instruction hours in food and nutrition education.
As part of the evaluation work, the Change Matrix evaluation team developed a theory of change, evaluation plan, and collected data from multiple sources, including grantee surveys, key informant interviews, a focus group with youth program participants, and community listening sessions with community members. We also analyzed secondary data sources (such as local, state, and national datasets tracking food insecurity and related indicators). These data were analyzed each year and used to prepare an annual evaluation report. All reports are available on the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment (DDPHE) website. CM has been truly passionate about this work and we are proud to have witnessed the growth of the initiative and its impact in real time over the past several years. We are proud to present the final report that describes the food environment in Denver, reports on the grantee activities and outcomes, highlights themes related to gaps and strengths in the Denver food system, and presents implications for HFDK strategy.
