After 14 years at the helm, Harter will hand over daily operations of CCPC to new director Steve Richardson on Oct. 1, to take on new challenges as the co-chair of CCPC’s board.
Harter is taking over for the co-founder of the nonprofit Jim Swartz who is stepping down. Harter will serve alongside co-chair Susan Swartz in a paid consulting position.
“It's gonna be kind of a unique situation, because I'm gonna have a dual role as a consultant paid, but also a board member,” Harter explained. “Most of the board members are just volunteer only, and so, yeah, my position's a bit unique. We have one other board member that's been paid over the time as a consultant, but I'll be the second one.”
Meanwhile, Harter said they had another successful Back 2 School Basics campaign, raising the funds and supplies to support more than a thousand school-aged children.
“We had about 1350 kids registered from Summit and Wasatch counties and our friends from the Goshute tribe, and it was so fun,” he said. “I was there for both days. It was so great seeing these kids’ smiles and the parents’ smiles to be able to get new clothes to start the school year and then have the school supplies they need and the backpack. It just was such a fun event. And again, thank you to the community for supporting us in that.”
The center’s mobile food pantry will wrap up its Park City stops at the end of the month but will continue with the Heber City stops into September. Harter said they’ve seen a 20% increase in the numbers across all their food pantries and hope that the community will help support the work they do by attending the annual Hike for Hunger on Sept. 14 at the base of Canyons Village.
“We've got some new elements to it,” he said. “We've got food trucks there. We'll have live music, of course, great hiking trails. So, we encourage you to come check it out. Again, it's all about food insecurity. To raise awareness around food insecurity, as I mentioned, we've seen a 20% increase so far this year. We saw a 20% increase. The international students haven't even come. That's typically when we see that spike in attendance to our food pantry. So, the fact is, it's continuing to grow, and so, just people still are surprised that that is a need here in this community. So come out for our fundraiser. It's a great day, and it's a great location.”
A link for tickets and more information for Hike for Hunger is available here.
