DENVER, Colorado — Help can come in the form of a simple cardboard box, like the one on Shannon Bowers' front steps in Denver's Congress Park neighborhood.
“I stock it every single night and then sometimes in the morning," Bowers said.
Thursday morning, Bowers filled the box with canned food, snacks, water, personal hygiene products and more.
“A lot of things that you kind of eat on the go," Bowers said. "This is my little free pantry."
A small sign beside the box reads, "Somebody Cares. Take what you need. Leave what you can."
The sign changes from time to time, Bowers said. There have also been several iterations of the box.
“It’s been a broken cooler," she said. "It's been some broken totes. It’s whatever I can find in the house that I can put out here knowing that it might leave.”
For nine months, Bowers has filled containers to help her community and welcomed people in need to the front steps of the home she rents near Detroit Street and 14th Avenue.
“What I notice most is there are a lot of really great organizations that are doing a lot of work on a much bigger scale, but I think there are so many people in those fringes that don’t have the access to get to those things," Bowers said.
Bowers said the idea to start a little food pantry came early on in the pandemic when she lost work and was struggling.
“We were kind of forced to use the food bank a couple of times," she said.
Bowers said she volunteered at food banks for years, but March 2020 was the first time she and her boyfriend needed help of their own.
“The first time I went, we just got so much that they give for a single family and we’re just two people," she said.
Bowers said she decided to leave the food they didn't need on her front porch with a sign welcoming people to take what they needed.
“After about a week, I realized how every night I would put stuff out, it was gone the next day," she said. "Completely empty.”
Soon, friends and neighbors reached out to Bowers offering to donate food or cash to help her keep the little pantry going.
“It’s really been filled the last few months by a whole lot of people," she said. “I even had a friend’s daughter bring over all her Halloween candy and donate that in October which I thought was super sweet.”
Some visitors drop off food and leave handwritten notes on the box thanking Bowers and her family. Bowers' said the notes feed her soul and motivate her to keep stocking the box.
Bowers said she hopes the simple idea of helping neighbors spreads from her front steps to yours.
"I think the impact really should be little things like this kind of all over that it’s just accessible for people," she said.
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