Posts tagged Community Food Share

Boulder County, Colo. – The Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services is leading the Colorado PEAK Outreach Initiative, a statewide effort to ensure the success of a new online benefits application.

The application, www.Colorado.gov/PEAK, launched in early June to help facilitate access to public medical, food and cash assistance programs for eligible children, adults and families across Colorado.

Boulder County is leading the initiative’s statewide implementation through unprecedented collaboration with state agencies, community-based organizations and leadership in each of Colorado’s 64 counties.

“The initiative aims to ensure that every eligible individual, child and family in Colorado is screened for and enrolled in the health, food and financial self-sufficiency benefits that help them thrive,” project director Dawn Joyce said.

Colorado has joined with 26 other states across the U.S. that offer online benefit applications as a targeted effort to meet the increasing demand for public assistance benefits and to remove barriers preventing people from receiving assistance.

“After talking with several other states with online applications like Colorado PEAK, we learned that a targeted, effective outreach effort was critical to the success of web-based benefit application,” said Housing and Human Services Director Frank Alexander.

Boulder County secured numerous foundation grants to fund the three-person PEAK Outreach Initiative team, which has built coalitions across the state, developed outreach and training materials, and conducted focus groups with more than 200 individuals to ensure that the PEAK online application is user-friendly in both English and Spanish.

Organizations in Boulder County currently offering assistance with PEAK are: Emergency Family Assistance Association, Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, the Mental Health Center of Boulder and Broomfield Counties, Sister Carmen Community Center, Our Center, The Parenting Place, Community Food Share, Project Hope, Longmont Senior Services and City of Longmont Aging Services.

For more information about PEAK and training opportunities, please Jacqueline Sullivan at 303-918-5427 or PEAKOutreach@bouldercounty.org.

-Bo