At the Heart of CFR
Diane Calvin
Founder, Executive Director
Diane Calvin is the founder of CAFE Food Rescue. She held the vision of a food rescue organization for Summit County in her heart for many years. When COVID hit and food insecurity grew in Summit County, she decided to start CAFE Food Rescue, beginning as the sole worker, picking up and distributing food herself. As she found more support and help from friends, she began writing grant proposals and expanding the food rescued and redistributed.
She has a degree in civil engineering and a background in solid waste management. When living in Massachusetts, she worked with schools and secured grants to recover organic waste from lunches and improve recycling programs. When the family moved to Rhode Island, she continued to promote food rescue. She was a part of the RI Food Policy Council working to reduce wasted food. She also founded foodSCAPE, a nonprofit that worked with schools to divert food scraps into compost, piloted food recovery from the Summer Meals Program in Providence, and defined and published guidelines for donation of commercially packaged food and whole fruit from school lunches.
She believes deeply in this community and that our people care for others and for protecting our unique and fragile environment.
Colleen Ihnken
Board President
Nurse Practitioner at the Summit Community Care Clinic
As Cafe Food Rescue’s Board President, Colleen Ihnken is committed to collaborating with Community partners and Summit County Residents to improve access to healthy food for all while reducing food waste. Colleen is dedicated to advocating for change that will positively impact people at risk, facing hunger or that simply do not have access or means to purchase healthy food. She is passionate to be part of Cafe Food Rescue and its mission. She is excited to learn more about food policy.
Colleen is a Family Nurse Practitioner at the Summit Community Care Clinic and works in the School-Based Health Centers. She works primarily serving the underserved and uninsured. She received a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and has been practicing as a Nurse Practitioner for 17 years.
Jenniffer González
Board member
Care Navigator at Youth and Family Services
As CAFE Food Rescue’s Outreach and Community Coordinator, Jenniffer González is committed to working with Community partners and Summit County Residents by identifying associates who might be prospective donors. Jenniffer is dedicated to advocating for transformation that will positively impact people facing hunger. She feels passionate to be part of the CAFE Food Rescue and will work on innovative approaches to rescue healthy food that would otherwise be wasted.
Jenniffer is from Panama City and works very closely with the Latino community. She received a Master Degree in Tourism Administration in the Canary Islands. With more than 15 years of case management experience in the nonprofit sector. Currently, Jenniffer works as a Strengthening Families Coordinator in Youth and Family Services at the Summit County Department of Public Health.
Leo Santos
Board Secretary
Youth Coordinator at Northwest Colorado Center for Independence
Leo Santos was born in Mexico but has lived in Summit County since he was very young. He is very interested in being outside and enjoying everything that comes with the beautiful mountain community. He graduated from Snowy Peaks in 2012 and in 2019 began working for the Northwest Colorado Center for Independence. NWCCI helps people with disabilities in our county. He enjoys every second of living here and working with people “I wouldn’t change it for nothing in this world.”
Leo grew up in a single parent household and learned not to waste food because it was scarce. As he got older, paying for food on his own was also hard. He jumped at the chance to join the FIRC’s equity coalition working on providing healthy and affordable foods for everyone. He joined CAFE Food rescue to help the community he loves so much save as much food as possible.
Katrina Doerfler
Board Treasurer
As Cafe Food Rescue’s (CFR) Treasurer, Katrina is committed to identifying revenue opportunities and sustainably building CFR to meet the county’s needs. She has been active in the county-area food banks since 2020, when the pandemic hit. With such disparity of economic levels in county residents, she sees food recovery as both an environmental necessity (reducing methane gas in landfills) and solving the “meal gap” for our residents (ensuring our residents are food secure).
Katrina also volunteers with the Summit County Transit Board and is passionate about the intersection of transit services and food recovery/food pantries in the county. We have diverse terrain and extreme weather in our county and we should be coordinating to ensure that public transportation services support our food recycling efforts.
Katrina and her family love the beauty and outdoor recreation in Summit County. She has lived here since 2015, fully retiring at the end of 2019. She is a former CPA and Sales executive with 35+ years of experience.
Blanca Delao
Board Member
Blanca De La O serves on the Food Equity Coalition and has worked at the FIRC for years. She is from Chihuahua Mexico and has lived in Summit County for 20 years. Her family always taught her to share food with others and never to waste it.
She is overjoyed to have the opportunity to raise my four kids in this community where they can be proud of their Mexican identity, heritage and values but also be able to immerse themselves in American culture. Being a part of CaFe Rescue allows me to serve the generous and diverse community we love to call home.
Hallie Jaeger
Vice President
driving practical solutions for waste reduction and resource conservation in the mountain community.
Promoting social wellness, environmental regeneration, and sustainable economic impact in our communities is achievable!
Hallie, as the Development Director at Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center, utilizes her expertise in fundraising strategy, donor relations, grant-writing, data analysis, and marketing to support one of the nation's top Adaptive Ski Programs and Wilderness Experience Centers. Additionally, she shares her knowledge as an Adjunct Instructor at Colorado Mountain College, teaching Sustainable Business and Agriculture. Hallie believes in connectedness to the environment, respect for all living beings, resource conservation, and access to healthy food and habits for all, which can bridge societal gaps and lead to resilient communities. With a background spanning from Hyatt Hotels to bio-dynamic farming practices in Southeast Asia and an M.A. in International Development, Global Health, and Sustainability from the University of Denver, Hallie brings a wealth of experience to her work. She also served as the Community Program Coordinator at High Country Conservation Center,
Will Shira
Industry Liaison
Will has been living full time in Summit County since 2013, and playing in the mountains for his entire life - except for four years in Boston at Tufts University to get his degree (hard to study in the mountains). As part of his Environmental Justice education and his work in restaurants to pay the bills, he became increasingly interested in food rescue as a solution for both food insecurity and environmental impact. Now serving on the board as a Industry Liaison, Will puts his extensive restaurant experience to work helping the community and place that he loves. "My goal is to help people who want to help people help people."
Currently, he works for the James Beard award winning restaurant, Rootstalk, as their maître d' and also volunteers with SOS Outreach through the winter season. When he's not there you can probably find him out paddle boarding whether or not the lakes have frozen over.
Nancy Higuera
Bilingual Food Rescue Manager
CAFE Food Rescue’s Bilingual Food Rescue Manager, Nancy Higuera manages volunteers for food packaging and food runs. Nancy also makes sure that all of CAFE Food Rescue’s materials are translated into both Spanish and English.
After two and a half years working at FIRC, including as their Food Pantry Manager, Nancy took a break and came to CAFE Food Rescue in June 2024. In addition to her nonprofit work, Nancy owns two small businesses with her husband, sits on the Silverthorne Planning Commission, and serves on the Board of the Summit County Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. She is also on the Governing Council of a statewide organization, Blueprint to End Hunger.
Nancy believes, “Food is a right and everyone should have access to nutritious and healthy food.” She is also inspired by the environmental sustainability of food rescue. One of the businesses she owns is a waste disposal business, so she sees the juxtaposition of waste disposal and food rescue.
Nancy is also focused on being an advocate for the Latino community in Summit County to not only access food, but also to be empowered by volunteering to rescue food. “I love that I’m working with the community and often in the language of my heart, which is Spanish.” Nancy is committed to having the people CAFE Food Rescue serves feel comfortable volunteering and be able to do so in their language.
Nancy was born and raised in Summit County and is fully bilingual. Nancy is currently working on her human services degree at Colorado Mountain College.
Leanne Kelly
Operations Manager
Leanne Kelly came to CAFE Food Rescue in late 2023, first as a volunteer and then as the Operations Manager. Although Leanne’s background is as an engineer, over time she recognized that she enjoys working in operations and organizational management, and that she could apply that to her commitment to food equity.
Leanne moved to Summit County in 2021 and started volunteering with FIRC in Dillon. Her passion for food led her to volunteer on a weekly basis unloading the truck and getting the food pantry set up. Before that, her volunteer work at her son’s school was providing meals for school activities.
At first Leanne’s commitment to CAFE Food Rescue was organizing volunteers, creating an online database and volunteer recruitment system. In 2024 she began managing operations, including software that helps things run smoothly behind the scenes. She has set up CAFE Food Rescue’s systems to capture food collection data, shifting from a paper-based system to volunteers entering data directly online from their phones.
Leanne says she is struck by the importance of food as “how we connect and how we bond. In Minnesota we used to have family over. They’d come over and we’d have that big meal. Food is a central piece of that. If there’s a family that is struggling to get food on the table, they’re not experiencing that.” Leanne hopes that by working with CAFE Food Rescue she is providing an opportunity for people to come together over a meal and laugh and share stories.
Leanne also notes that the food collected by CAFE Food Rescue is chef-prepared conference center food and food from high quality supermarkets. “This is good food!” Leanne says, “It’s healthy. It’s not processed.”