A crowd gathered outside the Globeville Recreation Center on Monday as the neighborhood’s food pantry opened its doors.
It was like any other week since Birdseed Collective, a local nonprofit, took over the space in 2018. Many visitors walked or drove from homes nearby. Most spoke Spanish. They were grateful for the boxes filled with eggs and vegetables and loaves of bread — especially after the disruption to SNAP benefits.
But there was something else causing concern: Many of Birdseed’s customers were just learning the program would soon have to pack up and move out of the building.
“We feel like we're being displaced,” Kristina Garcia, who runs the distribution program, said as she loaded groceries into boxes for the crowd outside. “Whatever we do, we're probably not gonna stay here.”
On Oct. 24, Garcia received word that Denver Parks and Recreation had selected another operator for the city-owned property. She said the move was a surprise, not least because officials initially gave her organization just a week to move out. That deadline was later extended to the end of the year. Garcia said she, her colleagues and their community are still reeling from the decision.
Another nonprofit, the Denver Dream Center, will take over the rec center’s operations on Jan. 1, 2026, pending approval from Denver City Council. The service organization has worked with youth, people exiting prison and people in homelessness for 19 years. Its organizers say they want to work with Garcia and her team to ensure Birdseed can continue to offer services at the rec center, where it has operated for more than a decade.
But Garcia said Birdseed Collective is still weighing its options. Whether it remains connected to the old gym and community center is yet to be seen.
Birdseed Collective was not expecting to leave the rec center.
Garcia said the nonprofit worked in the building for 15 years, long before the city awarded it with a contract to take full responsibility of the space in 2018. When it did win the contract, one Parks and Rec official described the nonprofit’s involvement as “really giving back the community center to the community.”
The food pantry was always central to Birdseed’s operation, but it has offered more and more community services over time: a weekly bingo game, crafting nights, space for traditional dance groups to practice together.
Garcia said participation grew through the years. Demand for her grocery boxes rose as city life became more expensive.
“We started out making just 40 boxes, and now we're here making 120 household boxes, as of this week. And we're still running out within 15 minutes of starting,” she told us. “We're serving over 500 people weekly with our food bank, so that's a chunk of our neighborhoods.”
Birdseed’s initial contract lasted four years, but Garcia said that was quickly extended in 2022 as the pandemic’s economic downturn still weighed on the neighborhood. She said the nonprofit applied to renew its agreement with the city this year and, she and her colleagues had no reason to think they would lose the space.
“We asked them if we needed an exit plan, several times, over the past six months. They assured us we did not need an exit plan,” she said. “Then, during the request for proposals, they had mandatory meetings that, if you wanted to apply, you'd have to come to. Nobody [else] came to the meetings.”
So she was shocked when Denver Parks and Rec, which oversees the rec center, sent notice that Birdseed would have to move out.
Jolon Clark, head of Denver Parks and Rec, told us the decision was tied to Denver’s request for proposals (RFP) process, which must be open to outside bidders.
“We had three bidders and, based on the RFP criteria and the scoring, Birdseed was not the top,” Clark said.
He also said he recognized the nonprofit is important to the community, especially as grocery resources have tightened in the last few months.
“That's why we're working to find a way for them to still be in there,” Clark said.
The Denver Dream Center has plans for a youth center.
Clark and District 9 Councilmember Darrell Watson said they’ve been talking with Denver Dream Center’s leadership to find a way for Birdseed Collective’s food pantry, at minimum, to stay here after the building changes hands.
Bryan “Pastor B” Sederwall, the Dream Center’s CEO and founder, said Thursday he was planning to speak with Anthony Garcia, Kristina’s brother and Birdseed’s executive director, to see if they could find a path forward.
“I'm hoping that there's a way that we can work together to serve the community. I don't think our community needs more divisions and more frustrations,” Sederwall said. “We're not trying to replace or supplant anybody that's needed in the community. We're really trying to expand the opportunity, to take the good that's getting done and do it hopefully at a higher capacity.”
But Kristina Garcia said on Monday that the city had burned a bridge with her family and organization, and that anything short of a renewed lease would be hard to swallow. She stressed Birdseed Collective will continue distributing food in the neighborhood, regardless of where they land.
Sederwall said his organization is still “vision casting” how it will occupy the space, but said he intends for the building to focus on services for young people.
“The Globeville Rec Center opportunity gives us a chance to really mobilize the kids and youth programs as a high priority,” he said. “We anticipate being able to keep the rec center open for some pretty extensive hours, with a lot of opportunities for afterschool programs, mentoring, tutoring, expansion of sports programs.”
Sederwall didn’t provide Denverite a copy of his RFP proposal. The city also denied Denverite’s records request for applications, since there is not “a fully executed contract” for the deal and thus the documents are confidential.
Sederwall said there will also be programming for adults, like fitness and financial planning classes. He has therapists on staff who can offer behavioral health care. He said the Dream Center already works with families in the neighborhood.
“It's really an expansion of wraparound resources that we will adjust based on the needs of the community,” Sederwall said.
If approved by council, the Globeville Rec Center will join the Dream Center’s growing collection of facilities, which includes a headquarters on Curtis Street that serves people in homelessness and a coffee shop at Colfax Avenue and Irving Street that employs people exiting incarceration.
Sederwall’s organization also leads street outreach teams that are contracted by the city to contact people living outside. Denver has paid his organization almost $1 million this year for social services. He added the Globeville Rec Center will not be a shelter.
Some Globeville residents are feeling burned, and a little worried, by the impending changes.
Though Birdseed’s food service will likely continue after the rec center changes hands, the possibility that it could operate somewhere else, after all this time, was upsetting to people we met on Monday.
Some said the current location was convenient, so it would be a problem if the pantry and nonprofit moved out of walking distance.
But for others, like Federico Reyes, the concern was about more than access to groceries. He grew up in the neighborhood and has known and trusted Garcia’s family for years.
“They're really important for the community and everybody around,” Reyes said.
Longtime food pantry volunteer Gil Herrera Sr. said he spends half his time in the old building.
“I can just go and hang out with some young kids, maybe some adults like my age, and just see what’s going on in the community, what the needs are,” he said. “They’re taking that away from me. Where do I go now?”
A community loss at the hand of the city is nothing new here, Angela Garcia (no relation to Kristina), told us. The longtime Globeville resident and advocate said her neighbors hold a historic distrust of officials’ motives, especially as urban renewal finally reaches the area.
“They didn't ask any community members who access that space what they wanted, what we wanted, what we think. Once again, as usual, the voices of community are always silenced and ignored,” she said.
Sederwall said outreach will be his first priority upon moving into the rec center, starting with a “mobilization of partners, community, with resources and volunteers to literally go door to door through the neighborhood to make sure we're meeting the demands of the community.”
“Whether it's a senior that needs care, if it's a family that needs food, if it's rental or mortgage assistance, if someone needs yard work done or their house painted, we will be mobilized.”
