The year 2009 had just begun. Communities across the U.S. were still feeling the sting of the 2008 financial crisis — even those tucked away in mountain ski resort towns.

Summit County Rotary Club member Deb Hage was watching members of the community around her suffer. People lost their jobs, and some lost their homes. Hage said it made her want to do something to help, but she wasn’t sure what type of help would be most beneficial for people struggling. 

While she didn’t know where to start, she figured a local nonprofit that provides various types of support to the community, Family & Intercultural Resource Center, might help make a difference. 

“What do people need?” Hage remembers asking the leaders of the nonprofit. 

She was told that financially hard times force people into uncomfortable situations, like living in their car, which means they could go to a food bank but would often have nowhere to cook the food.

“What we need is a weekly meal, not a soup kitchen, but a weekly meal with meat, potatoes, starch, salad, fruit, drinks — a full meal,” she recalled Family & Intercultural Resource Center staff members telling her. 

Hage secured funding from Vail Resort’s charitable arm, Epic Promise. She also received financial assistance from the Summit Foundation and local municipalities to help the Rotary Club of Summit County start the Community Dinner Project in March 2009. 

On Jan. 28, 2025, the Community Dinner Project served its 200,000th plate at the Summit County Elks Lodge. Now in a different, less-involved role in the Rotary Club, Hage floated through the room snapping photos on her iPhone of attendees with plates full of food prepared by Arapahoe Basin Ski Area head chef Chris Rybak. She took to-go containers to families with young children zipping around the room and helped them prepare a meal for loved ones back home. 

She only has a few days left in the county before she takes refuge in a warmer climate for the winter months. She should have already been in that warmer climate at this point in the winter, but she couldn’t miss the 200,000th meal. 

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A sign on the wall of the Elks Lodge details the Community Dinner Project kept 117,000 pounds of food out of landfills by “rescuing” it or receiving donations of food that would have been thrown out otherwise.

Seventy-nine different organizations have volunteered to help the movement, and there hasn’t been a Tuesday in the past 15 years where the community dinner hasn’t happened, according to the club. During the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers doled out to-go containers to ensure a Tuesday wasn’t missed.

Volunteers said an outstanding menu is always expected when it’s Rybak and Arapahoe Basin’s turn to supply the dinner.

Offerings for the Jan. 28 dinner included green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread and 120 lbs of brisket, which Rybak smoked. 

While food insecurity ignited the creation of the Community Dinner Project, volunteer Bob Peterson clarified it’s “not a soup kitchen … we get people from all walks of life that come in here.” 

Attendees can come in and get a free meal or donate $20. They can be resort employees, chief executive officers or people just trying to make ends meet. 

Don Stofield, who has been attending the dinners for eight years, said there’s never been a lack of fabulous food featuring nutritious options to keep people sustained. 

“It is important to the community to have something (like this), well, because it brings everybody together — from the wealthy all the way down to the people who live outdoors, like me,” he said.

Volunteers said outside of providing a meal, the social interaction the dinners provide seems to be invaluable to attendees.

“You hear laughter, you hear conversations, you see people making friends,” Rotarian Sue Peterson said. “I just feel like it really is brings the community together for one night a week to share a meal.”

To learn more about the Summit County Rotary Club’s Community Dinner, visit TinyUrl.com/4b54n52f.