By Joe Vaccarelli
YourHub Reporter

Community leaders and the West Colfax Business Improvement District are exploring a food co-op somewhere along West Colfax to give residents better access to fresh, healthy and affordable food. The co-op would allow supporting members to buy a membership that is also a part ownership allowing them to vote on issues. There would also be a board of directors. The market would fill a need in the community for a grocer, which the West Colfax Business Improvement District has been trying to bring in for some time.

“We’re in a food desert in a sense that you have low-income people who don’t necessarily have transportation,” West Colfax BID executive director Dan Shah said. Small lot sizes have been an issue that have kept both large and small chain grocers off of West Colfax. Shah and leaders from some surrounding neighborhoods have been looking at the possibility of the co-op since last spring and recently met with the community to discuss the issue.

Dorothy Worley, left, looks at the pastries at the Second Kitchen on Sept. 5, 2013. The Second Kitchen is a co-op food company. (Cliff Grassick, Daily Camera file)

Resident Kathryn Kubala is new to West Colfax and thought the co-op was a good idea. She’s been volunteering to help run the co-op’s Facebook page.She said people in her area typically shop at King Soopers off of Sheridan Boulevard in Edgewater, Safeway on 26th Avenue and Federal or all the way to Belmar in Lakewood to shop at Whole Foods. People searching for quick options will go to 7-Eleven on West Colfax.

READ ARTICLE in the Denver Post

For more and future information on the West Colfax co-op, visit

https://www.facebook.com/WestColfaxFoodCoop