Food pantries in Boulder County may be hit hard if shutdown continues

Wednesday was like any other for Harvest of Hope, a food pantry that sits in a business park in east Boulder just off Foothills Parkway.

Adults — single or otherwise, parents or otherwise, housed or unhoused — trickled into the small, one-story building to get their day’s worth or week’s worth of food. After checking in at the front desk, they entered a bite-sized grocery store — a single room with produce on racks, canned food, refrigerated food and drinks, and pre-made meals for the unhoused. Some of the shelves were bare by the afternoon.

Lately, though, the anxiety of Harvest of Hope executive director Chad Molter and his network of staff and volunteers is at a constant simmer as the federal government shutdown lingers on, and as further cuts to federal food assistance programs loom.