December 2025 Newsletter
Boletín de diciembre de 2025
Welcome to our December 2025 newsletter! It has been a fantastic year in the community, and we would like to use this newsletter as an opportunity to reflect on the growth and resiliency that has been built in our local food system this year. Check out our most recent updates and our Year in Review below!
¡Bienvenidos a nuestro boletín de diciembre de 2025! Ha sido un año fantástico para la comunidad, y nos gustaría aprovechar este boletín para reflexionar sobre el crecimiento y la resiliencia que se han construido en nuestro sistema alimentario local durante este año. ¡Eche un vistazo a nuestras últimas novedades y a nuestro resumen del año a continuación!
To limit the size of our newsletters, our Spanish and English content will now be posted separately. If you prefer reading our newsletter in Spanish, click here.
Para una lectura más fácil, decidimos separar las versiones en inglés y español de nuestro boletín. Si prefiere leer nuestro boletín en español, por favor acceda a nuestro sitio de boletines.
Mercado Azteca Now Offering Double Up Food Bucks!
Starting November 1st, Mercado Azteca is offering Double Up Food Bucks for all SNAP recipients! As the community recovers from the lapse in SNAP benefits, we are excited to announce the strides that have been made for local businesses and residents to support each other. The establishment of the DUFB in brick and mortar businesses provides them with the opportunity for additional revenue and provides SNAP participants with additional access to nutritious food.
What is Double Up Food Bucks?
When you use your EBT Card at a participating location, Double Up matches your SNAP purchases dollar for dollar, up to $20 a day. That means you and your family get TWICE the fresh fruits and veggies.
If you have an EBT Card, you're automatically eligible for Double Up!
Thank you to Nourish Colorado and our Small Markets Collaborator Angela Stover for supporting Mercado Azteca in being the first brick-and-mortar store in northwest Aurora to accept Double Up Food Bucks!
Colorado Gives Day is December 9th!
Help Us Reach Our Contribution Goal for Our Community Greenhouse
Colorado Gives Day is coming up! We are continuing our campaign to support the construction and development of Aurora’s first community greenhouse!
With your help, we can continue our greenhouse project in this community, creating a unique opportunity to grow food more accessible for residents and reduce reliance on external food systems.
Help us reach our $2,500 goal through a one-time or recurring contribution! Recurring contributions support the long-term sustainability of the greenhouse and its programs. All recurring contributions set up between now and Colorado Gives Day, December 9th, will be matched up to $100.
The Food Justice Festival Survey Report is Here!
At our annual Food Justice Festival this fall, we collected data from 270 community members about their experience accessing food through a survey. This data helps our organization to improve our programs and advocacy strategies to effectively support the food justice goals of the community.
FJNWA is committed to data accessibility and transparency. We invite you to review the information that we collected and the action steps that we’ve identified from what we learned.
Thank You to Our Board Members
Through development from our steering committee, 2025 was the inaugural year for the Food Justice NW Aurora Board of Directors. We thank our board members for their leadership, support, and advice across all our programs and strategies.
We’d like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our Board Chair and Vice Chair:
Patti Iwasaki is one of the founding mothers of Food Justice NW Aurora. Our organization’s origin story can be traced back to fall of 2021 to a food truck festival when Patti engaged Councilmember Crystal Murillo in a conversation about food policy councils. From there on out, Patti was a core member of the founding steering committee. She has applied her critical lens to the work, always centering justice for the diverse residents and business owners of northwest Aurora. In 2025, Patti served as FJNWA’s first Board Chair. We are grateful to how she has stewarded the organization from an idea to a growing team.
One of Patti’s love languages is food. She has nourished our team and the northwest Aurora community with a lovely array of tea, strong coffee, and homemade treats at farmers markets, community meetings, and food justice festivals.
We thank Patti for lending her wisdom and years of experience as an advocate, social worker, public health professional, and community organizer to FJNWA.
Olive Hinnant joined the FJNWA Board in 2025 after meeting our team at the 2024 Food Justice Festival. Olive dove right in! She was on a personal journey to shift from a charity mindset of food assistance to a solidarity approach to food justice and food sovereignty. She showed that she was eager to learn and apply new lenses. As a pastor and faith leader, Olive helped us connect with faith groups in Aurora and build new partnerships that we hope will continue for years to come. In 2025, Olive served as FJNWA’s first Board Vice Chair.
Olive is full of energy and enthusiasm. The bright colors of her clothing and jewelry reflect her warm and inviting personality. Olive wore her FJNWA t-shirt with pride and a smile. We’re happy to have her in the FJNWA community.
We thank Olive for her openness, curiosity, and helping hand. We wish Olive all the best as she steps into her new role leading a church in San Jose, California.
Our Year in Review
2025 has been an incredible year of growth for our organization. As we wrap up the year, we want to take a moment to celebrate the milestones and developments. We thank the residents, community leaders, collaborators and supporters that have engaged in this work with us, and we look forward to the strength we can continue to build in our local food system.
Check out some of our highlights from 2025!
Idea of the Month
Welcome to our final Idea of the Month for 2025! This series was introduced to our newsletters this year, and has provided FJNWA with an opportunity every month to engage more deeply with the values and commitments of our mission.
Food Justice NW Aurora is building a multicultural, intergenerational, and intersectional movement for food justice and food sovereignty to transform our local food system in northwest Aurora, Colorado. But what does this mean in practice? This month, we’re focusing on the term Rest.
Rest may seem like a simple term, but it has a much more significant meaning in justice movements. Tricia Hersey, the founder of The Nap Ministry and the Author of Rest as Resistance, describes rest as a framework for collective power: “You were not just born to center your entire existence on work and labor. You were born to heal, to grow, to be of service to yourself and community, to practice, to experiment, to create, to have space, to dream, and to connect” (Hersey, 2022).
This framework creates an opportunity to dismantle the white supremacist and capitalist idea of “productivity” that exhausts leaders and movements. The mindset of relentlessness and the need to constantly have a productive output is destructive to liberation. A key component of justice is healing and restoration, and we have to intentionally engage in that practice to ensure our collective sustainability.
The end of the year provides a valuable opportunity for rest and reflection. We encourage our community to engage in the power of self-care and community care. Take the time and space to rest unapologetically.
As Hersey describes, “If you are not resting, you will not make it. And I need you to make it.”