Before placing a box on your property we strongly recommend you talk to your neighbors about the idea of placing one in your neighborhood.  Your box is completely community supported, so having the support of your community is important.

To join the waitlist email the Director of Mission Arvada, Rebel Rodriguez rebel@missionarvada.org

Thank you for your interest in joining the outdoor pantry movement!  One way of supporting this movement is to help keep boxes filled.  You can download the new box locator app and use it to navigate your way to boxes that need filling throughout Arvada.

We always need people to help clean and repair boxes.  Email us: jessa@personablemedia.com

For more volunteer opportunities email the Director of Mission Arvada, Rebel: rebel@arvadarising.com

For easy cleanup, shelves inside each box are removable.  New hosts become fully responsible for their box (box name, artwork & occasional-to-frequent cleaning) and how the community supports it.  If you don’t have the artistic touch to paint your box, nominate someone who can!

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BUILD

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PAINT

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TAKE WHAT YOU NEED, LEAVE WHAT YOU CAN

When I moved to Arvada, I joined the Rising Church and saw how much they were doing for the community immediately surrounding them. I loved it and became a member there in late 2014. It felt good to give back through them and I eventually started helping them with their media and websites. In late 2015, I found the Arvada Chamber and hit the ground running by joining the Arvada Young Professionals group and attending Organizations Serving Arvada meetings. Last year, I joined the Leadership Jefferson County program that is currently building a community garden at Foster Elementary.

I love to learn how other people are giving back. From my involvement with churches in Arvada and Northwest Denver, I learned that there were a lot of churches and organizations that wanted the same thing. That’s where I got a passion for helping them communicate their message efficiently through their website. Being able to effectively communicate your “why” and how your business helps the community helps to put others in touch with you and makes your job easier too.

Installing the Blessing Box in Olde Town Arvada. It’s a community-sharing program and prior to moving to Colorado, we opened one lending library at a business in Iowa. But I found out that you could use these Little Lending Libraries either inside a business or outside as their own standing structure—and I took to that idea of having a community-sharing box.

Anything can be put in it, whether it is books or food or whatever it is that people who live there need or want, or choose to give. It’s a great opportunity for people who want to give back, especially to the homeless or a family who might require help with groceries that week. Having this available provides another outlet for individuals to get what they need when they need it. It also gives people in the community a way to give back. It isn’t always easy to know how to do that.

• March 21st, 2018: Blessing Box helps feed Arvada’s homeless from sidewalk – FOX 31
• July 11th, 2017: Rising Church’s Blessing Box provides for hungry community in Olde Town Arvada
• March 11th, 2017: The Rising Church opens community share “blessing” box to public
• December 8th, 2014: Lending library opens to public at Rost Motor

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