St. Vrain Valley Schools has a strong focus on nutrition and has received many recognitions such as the USDA’s Once in a Melon Award for administering an exemplary farm to school program. Additionally, the 3.8 millions meals that our Nutrition Services team serves each year includes local produce – including organic produce from Colorado’s Western Slope – whenever available. Other program highlights include:
- Providing over 2,000 snacks daily on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for extended learning after-school program.
- Offer special meal modifications daily for 253 students. Currently have over 2,000 special diet needs districtwide including religion preferences, allergies, and special meal modifications.
- Received an $11,700 grant this year from the Colorado Department of Education and USDA Farm to School Subgrant to support student led and grown agriculture for school cafeterias. Nine schools will participate by growing produce in their established school education gardens, using the yield of produce within their own school cafeteria for recipe development, and taste testing.
- Nutrition Services will also utilize two student-run greenhouses at the Career Elevation and Technology Center (CETC) and Burlington Elementary to enable year-round harvesting and purchasing.
- Partnership with “Cooking Matters” providing online cooking classes for parents and students for 6 weeks. All district students and families K-5 were able to participate.
- Provided support and funding dollars from School Wellness grant to Niwot High, Main Street, Hygiene Elementary, Sunset and Coal Ridge Middle for outdoor classroom projects.