The Journal Staff Report
Every Thursday afternoon, colorful bags of freshly harvested vegetables from the Cortez Middle School garden are laid out at Southwest Open School for students to choose from, filling grocery sacks to take home.
For young people whose typical diet consists of non-nutritious calories, this provides a healthful alternative. Adding to the bounty are boxes of seasonal fruit and veggies harvested by the Good Food Collective.
The Sharehouse community food center coordinates this effort. Its priority is to get more locally grown produce distributed to people who lack access to fresh, healthful food. This work is achieved through collaboration with local agencies and schools who share the desire to better the health and well-being of their clients and students.
The Sharehouse provides coordination, sourcing, refrigerated storage and delivery of donated and gleaned, locally grown food as a service to these agencies. Workshops about food, farming and art take place at The Sharehouse for the general public, and meeting space and a small commissary kitchen are available for rent in the facility.
The Sharehouse, located at 30-D N. Beech St., is a project of the Montezuma Food Coalition under Onward!
The Montezuma School to Farm Project started building school gardens in 2009 and now has gardens in seven locations throughout the county producing a wide variety of vegetables and integrating lessons in gardening with school curriculum. Each week during the growing season, production coordinator Ben Goodrich brings many flats of high-quality excess produce from the school gardens to The Sharehouse where the food is recorded by weight and type, refrigerated and delivered to SWOS.
The Good Food Collective has partnered with The Sharehouse to launch a gleaning effort in Montezuma County following the development of its 3-year-old program in La Plata County. The Sharehouse provides GFC with office space, refrigerated storage and distribution in exchange for assistance with handling a large volume of gleaned food. GFC has trained crews to harvest fruit that has been donated by people who have a surplus on their trees for donation to local nonprofits.
A strong motivating factor for everyone involved is the difference that good food makes in people’s lives. Experiencing good food grown with care in local communities creates awareness that health, wealth and happiness can grow from a strong and equitable local food system.
For more information, contact Laurie Hall at 769-5410, info@montezumafoodcoalition.org or www.montezumafoodcoalition.org, or contact Matt Keefauver at mkeefauver@cortez.k12.co.us.
