The inaugural Colorado Pizza Festival raised $60,000 for hunger relief after drawing thousands of people to downtown Longmont, a fundraising success that came with a much harder first-year lesson in crowd management, water access and just how many people would show up at once for pizza.
Festival organizers announced that all $60,000 in net proceeds from the event will be divided evenly among Longmont Food Rescue, Community Food Share, Colorado Friendship and Slice Out Hunger. Each organization will receive $15,000. Organizers said Colorado Friendship told them the donation is the largest single gift the nonprofit has received and will cover a full year of meals for the people it serves.
The event was extremely popular, and anyone who arrived near the 1 p.m. opening saw this almost immediately…