Community Connections

Cooking with Kids Community Connections builds on core programming successes, forging relationships across the community. In addition to integrating chefs and farmers into cooking classes, as a partner in the Santa Fe Food Project Coalition we are hosting an Americorps Youth Food Cadre volunteer who teaches cooking and gardening, working with Santa Fe Public Schools Student Nutrition Department to promote fruits and vegetables in school meals, developing new recipes and lessons, and disseminating curriculum and methods through training and technical assistance.

The Americorps Youth Food Cadre is hosted by Earth Care. The focus of the Cadre is to strengthen the local food system, empower young leaders, and meet the needs of children and youth from low-income families. Our Americorps volunteer is bringing vibrant energy to the work of connecting food and gardening education for students in a new public school that is focused on sustainability.

Over the past three years, CWK and Santa Fe Public Schools Student Nutrition Department have worked together to strengthen the connection between classroom learning with fruits and vegetables and school meals. CWK promotes the use of fresh fruits and vegetables in school meals in the following ways: providing tasting demonstrations for cafeteria managers of fruits and vegetables to motivate them to encourage students in their schools to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, as well as to improve their own food preferences and choices; providing information and demonstrations about proper storage, preparation and serving of fresh fruits and vegetables in schools to maximize usage and minimize waste; and developing new recipes and facilitating dialogue about how to read and follow recipes, and answering questions about cooking and food preparation.

Dissemination activities include: developing written and video training materials, and implementing hands-on training for Extension educators throughout New Mexico in partnership with state universities in New Mexico and Colorado; posting free fruit and vegetable tasting lessons on this website; advising Las Cruces Public Schools in program expansion efforts; and providing training and technical assistance for a pilot project in Colorado.