Silver and Cobre schools promote and serve NM grown food

(Silver City) – State officials are honoring Silver City Consolidated Schools, Cobre Consolidated School District and Frontier Food Hub for connecting students to locally grown food through the NM Grown program. The Grant County awardees earned awards in the Golden Chile Awards Program for buying and serving locally grown food, providing tasting opportunities, supporting student-led gardens, and educating students about the importance of healthy nutrition.

The awards program recognizes farmers, school districts, senior centers and preschools in a four-tiered recognition program – Seed, Sprout, Blossom and Golden Chile -- designed to acknowledge all levels of involvement in New Mexico's local food movement. State officials will recognize the 66 statewide winners at an Oct. 24 ceremony in Albuquerque.

Rhonda Torres, who has worked at Silver Consolidated Schools for 31 years and as food service director for the past seven, credited her team's hard work in successfully feeding about 1,200 students breakfast and lunch daily. She buys locally grown produce from Frontier Food Hub and serves seasonable fruits and vegetables as well as the students' favorite: green chile.

She said students can tell the difference in taste when her team incorporates local tomatoes into rice and lasagna. When they have taste testing at elementary schools, "It blows their mind that this was grown in our backyards, that this comes from here," Torres said.

Students at Stout Elementary are eager to try new produce that they grow in their school garden as well as the fruits and vegetables grown at area farms and distributed by Frontier Food Hub, a program of the National Center for Frontier Communities in Silver City.

The nonprofit's program earned a Golden Chile award for the second year for supporting small to mid-sized farmers in transporting their goods to schools, preschools and senior centers throughout the southwest region of New Mexico, including in Grant, Luna, Catron, Sierra, Hidalgo and Dona Ana counties. Frontier Food Hub also provides taste testing opportunities and nutrition education with Healthy Kids Grant County, a partner that works to increase physical activity and healthy eating opportunities.

Chase Sturdevant, Frontier Food Hub's operations manager, checks farmer supplies each week, publishes a list of available goods, and then places the institutions' orders with the farmers. Sometimes staff pick up produce and deliver the same day to schools or senior centers, or later that week depending on the order.

Sturdevant said NM Grown has helped remind people about the availability of local foods and the cycles of growing seasons. Seniors have told their senior center that food tastes better when they serve NM Grown products, and students have surprised adults by trying and liking local turnips and radishes.

"NM Grown has been great for everybody involved," he said. "It really helped support farmers because they have a local market that is consistent. That's helped give them the confidence to reinvest in their farms to grow larger quantities of different products that senior centers and early childhood centers like to buy."

At the Cobre Consolidated School District, Student Nutrition Director Alma Grijalva and her staff serve about 1,530 meals each day. She buys New Mexico grown products like chile, pinto beans, squash, peaches, beef, cantaloupe, lettuce, and tomatoes from Frontier Food Hub as well as Shamrock Foods amd Sysco.

Grijalva said the NM Grown program is a wonderful idea, and she incorporates new foods into student meals when possible since products are limited in her rural hometown. Cobre students' favorite is green chile chicken enchiladas.

Rita Condon, who helps facilitate the NM Grown Program as director of the New Mexico Department of Health's Obesity, Nutrition and Physical Activity Program, congratulated the Grant County awardees for serving children fresh, local food and supporting the economic stability of area farmers.