Nourish Colorado, a statewide nonprofit that contracts under Colorado’s Local Food Program, assists 31 Colorado schools with supplying students with local food.
Although the Local Food Program was initiated two years ago, Nourish Colorado has been in the works since 2009, where it was known as LiveWell and rebranded to Nourish Colorado in 2020.
“Local food is going to be fresher food,” said Rainey Wikstrom, Nourish Colorado’s chef consultant. “Fresher food is going to be more nutritious, more delicious and better for kids, local farmers and producers.
She said that one of the challenges of supporting districts with local foods is assisting with their infrastructure so they have the right equipment, kitchen facilities and training. Her job is to also play matchmaker for what local suppliers can provide to the schools.
“This grant just bolsters their bottom line and gets some extra money in so they’re purchasing things like beef from a local rancher,” Wikstrom said. “What we really find with kids and learning about nutrition is that when you teach kids about food, that’s really the best way to get positive health outcomes.”
As Nourish Colorado supports farm to school efforts throughout the state, Mancos School District has worked to ensure their students are fed on a local level. On Oct. 3, which is Colorado Proud Day, Mancos schools cooked up local food that was served to all students, 25 staff and about seven parents.
“It was great, we served local beef tacos, Colorado apples and Olathe sweet corn,” said Kacey Armes, Mancos Schools’ food service director. “We made our own local green chile sauce with some locally roasted green chilies. Then we had a bunch of produce on our salad bar – kale, lemon cucumbers, purple bell peppers – and a local salsa from one of our local food hubs – Tap Root Cooperative out of Mosca.”
That was lunch and for the Colorado Proud breakfast the school had biscuits and gravy with local ground pork from Sacred Song Farm, scrambled eggs from Yoder Family Farm in Monte Vista and fresh peaches.
Mancos School District also has a companion culinary program that incorporates local foods in their dishes and runs in companion with the lunch program. Because they don’t have a classroom designed specifically for culinary education, the students share the kitchen for their academic purposes.
The companion culinary program is one of Mancos School’s pathway classes, where the students receive a certificate for the trade they learned. If the students pass the culinary program, they walk away with a ServSafe Manager certificate – where Colorado requires that one person in a commercial kitchen must possess this.
Students also have to complete community service projects each year to pass the class. This year, they served chili and cornbread at the Mancos Cowboy Half Marathon.
Armes said that her new title this year as Food Service Director, she’s expanded her responsibilities to learn about grants and requirements from the state. She’s also learning about all the different regulations and how to manage her team. She’s worked her way up, from kitchen assistant to manager for the previous school district’s director to now, over the six years she’s been employed by Mancos School District.
She said that on top of the Nourish Colorado grant, the school also receives another called the Local Food for Schools Cooperative grant that is issued through the USDA. At the moment that funding is unlimited until next year but according to Armes this is the last time Mancos School District will receive that grant.
This is the second year Mancos School District has been involved. Last year they received $2,058.48 and this year they received a little over $20 from last year at $2,083 for the whole school year.
“It’s all made possible by our farmers, the grants and of course the lovely ladies that I work with in the kitchen,” Armes said. “It’s a team effort.”
Kacey’s Fun Facts
Mancos School District received 1800 pounds of local beef for this school year.
They purchased 320 pounds of local ground pork this year.
They brought in about 500 pounds of local produce and other products like local cheese, salsa, eggs that have come from the food hubs they work with – Tap Root Cooperative and Phoenix Foods from Dove Creek.
Close to 75 pounds of produce donated to Mancos School District.
