Kristina Garcia and her brother, Anthony, were caught off guard last year when they learned their nonprofit would lose its home in the Globeville Rec Center.
Birdseed Collective distributed free food to neighbors there for over a decade, and they thought their contract with Denver Parks and Recreation would be renewed easily. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Denver officials offered the space to a different nonprofit, and the Garcias set out to find a new base of operations. It didn’t take them long to find one.
On Monday, Birdseed Collective reopened its weekly food pantry just up the road from the rec center, on North Lincoln Street.
People gathered outside as Kristina Garcia and a group of volunteers filled 90 boxes with fresh vegetables, dairy and canned goods, resuming a service they feared would be paused during the move.
“I'm feeling excited. I'm feeling hopeful. I'm excited for the new spot,” she said as she prepared to open her doors for the first time. “I feel like it's going to be a good move for us.”
Everyone felt good about the collaboration.
The food pantry’s new home used to be the Tepeyac Community Health Center’s clinic.
Jim Garcia, Tepeyac’’s CEO (and not related to Kristina Garcia), said it was easy to say yes when Birdseed Collective approached him.
Tepeyac has been running its own weekly food distribution at the shiny new building it moved into in Elyria Swansea in 2023, after plans for a grocery store in that neighborhood fell through. He said ensuring residents of Globeville and Elyria Swansea have access to fresh, healthy food is part of his clinic’s mission. The North Denver neighborhoods have few local grocers.
“I knew [the Birdseed organizers]were just a really well-respected and needed organization in the community. And so when Kristina reached out to me about the challenges they were having with finding a place … I didn't really think twice. It just seemed like it made perfect sense,” Jim Garcia told Denverite.
Tepeyac plans to bring medical care back to its old Lincoln Street clinic in the coming years, which means Birdseed Collective’s tenure there may not be permanent. Jim Garcia said he’s glad someone can serve the neighborhood out of the space in the meantime.
“We would like to try to make that space available as long as we can, before we need it again for clinical care,” he said. “I think we're still a couple years out from that point.”
Though it was hard to leave the old rec center down the road, Kristina Garcia said she’s felt more empowered in her mission since she joined with Tepeyac.
“We have more control over the services that we can offer, we have more control over the hours that we're allowed to be open. So I feel like it's a great move. And then collaborating with the health center — then we can bring more health stuff to our programming,” she said. “It's going to be booming. It's going to go crazy, just due to the housing that's across the street … I feel like the amount of boxes that we're making now is going to double or triple.”
There’s still no word on Birdseed’s replacement at the rec center.
Bryan “Pastor B” Sederwall, founder and CEO of the Denver Dream Center, told us last year that his nonprofit won Denver Parks and Rec’s request-for-proposals bid for the old Globeville Rec Center. He said he planned to use the space for youth programs.
Officials did not confirm that, saying they could not comment on an ongoing process, but they did say they expected Denver City Council to vote on a new tenant by the end of 2025.
That hasn’t happened yet. Stephanie Figueroa, spokesperson for Denver Parks and Rec, said the city is still finalizing a contract.
