BOK Financial donates $100,000 to Colorado Restaurant Response

Colorado Restaurant Response prepares meals at Kachina Catina in Denver. 

Colorado Restaurant Response is creating more job opportunities and cooking more meals thanks to a $100,000 contribution from BOK Financial.

Colorado Restaurant Response’s model is to re-hire and keep restaurant workers employed, preparing ready-to-eat, nutritious meals. Meals are then distributed to food insecure families, unemployed service workers and frontline workers in partnership with the Denver Metro Emergency Food Network and Bondadosa. All funding goes toward food, utilities and paying hourly restaurant workers and drivers.

“BOK Financial’s donation of $100,000 will result in more than 15,000 meals for food insecure families in Colorado,” says Gabe Cohen, a spokesperson for Colorado Restaurant Response. “All of our funds go toward standing up restaurant kitchens, which allows people to come back to the jobs they love and delivering meals door-to-door to feed people who need it.”

Since launching on March 30, Colorado Restaurant Response has grown to partner with six restaurant kitchens serving 3,000 meals per day. So far, the initiative has delivered more than 80,000 meals.

This contribution is part of a $1 million effort by the BOK Financial Corporation. The goal of this effort is to extend its existing charitable budget and support initiatives that create jobs to provide hunger relief throughout the company’s eight-state footprint.

“Colorado nonprofits are a crucial safety net for our community and they are being called on to help our citizens on a scale they have never before seen,” says Bill Sullivan, the Colorado market CEO of BOK Financial. “It’s crucial that we do our part. We continue to work with all our existing nonprofit partners, but it’s also a time to dig deep to see what more we can do now.”

This community contribution is part of BOK Financial’s overall response to COVID-19 to keep employees safe and meet client needs. More information about BOK Financial’s efforts can be found here.

Nonprofit business coalition Colorado Succeeds serves as the fiscal agent for Colorado Restaurant Response and is assisting with the effort in addition to its continued work advocating for better outcomes for students and building statewide initiatives in public education and workforce development.

“BOK Financial joins other companies and executives responding to a call to support learners right now with their most basic needs,” says Scott Laband, the president of Colorado Succeeds. “They have amplified their leadership through this generous contribution to the Colorado Restaurant Response.”