We Are The Preservery Foundation!

For my very first blog post on our brand new website, please allow me to re-introduce ourselves: We are The Preservery Foundation!

Right now we are a small but mighty team of two: Dr. Obe Ariss, Founder and President, and me, Whitney Ariss, Founder and Communications Director. Our mission is to build community through food by providing hunger relief to people experiencing homelessness. Many folks know us as the former Co-Owners of The Preservery, a community-driven restaurant in Five Points in the RiNo Art District, which we officially closed on September 4th, 2022 after seven years of business.

The transition has been bittersweet. Of course we wrestled with the notion that in closing our restaurant we had failed in what we set out to accomplish. On the other side, though, we realized all the valuable lessons that we had learned along the way. Ultimately, it was the restaurant that led us to doing what we’re doing today.

The story of The Preservery Foundation begins in December of 2020. It was a very uncertain time for us, as it was for many folks. Indoor dining was shut down completely and outdoor dining was operating at a huge loss (but, at least, keeping everybody employed!). Obe and I were talking on an almost daily basis about whether or not we were going to be able to keep the business alive. When the first snow storm of the season hit, I drove to work that morning knowing the restaurant would be ridiculously slow and noticing all the tent encampments in the neighborhood blanketed in white. I thought what a shame it was that we had a team of people ready to cook, a beautiful kitchen to cook in, and nobody would come to the restaurant on a snow day. Meanwhile, all these folks living without proper shelter are struggling to survive and truly needed a hot meal. An idea dawned on me: what if we can get support from the community to feed people in need?

Somehow, it worked, and the Giving Meals program was born. Friends and family from all over the country as well as tons of folks in our surrounding community called us or stopped by to purchase Giving Meals. Supporters could either purchase a Giving Meal (which got them a meal as well as purchasing a meal for someone else) or a Straight Up Gift meal if they simply wanted to buy a meal, outright, for someone in need.

During a time when we were feeling pretty hopeless, the Giving Meal program gave us hope and filled us with purpose. We weren’t able to serve guests in the way that we were used to, but with the help of our dedicated team we were doing something so much more important - helping Denver’s most disenfranchised humans to survive.

Over the next two years, we raised enough money to distribute over 4,000 meals to folks in need. Now that we are able to focus all our attention on hunger relief, we aim to have a much larger impact in the near future.

As we work to identify different partners and supporters, we are directing much of our focus toward the restaurant industry. From our own experience, we know that restaurants are uniquely suited to fight hunger relief, not by donating money but by donating certified kitchen space as well as kitchen talent and even food. Most folks we’ve met in the restaurant world genuinely care about having a positive impact but they just don’t know what to do. We hope to be the catalyst that enables restaurants to give back without hurting their bottom line.

We can’t wait to share more news, information and storytelling through our blog. Stay tuned and keep in touch!