RRPS nutrition program is Golden – Rio Rancho Observer Home

EDUCATION
District honored as recipient of Golden Chile Award
RIO RANCHO — Rio Rancho Public Schools is one of five districts in the state that was recently presented with the Golden Chile Award from the New Mexico Grown Coalition.
“Last year, we got the Sprout Award. One of our goals and initiatives in our department with Southwest Food Excellence, which is our contractor, was to see how we could potentially get that Golden Chile Award and expand our New Mexico Grown program,” said Felix Griego, executive director of the Student Nutrition Team.
“We came up for some additional ideas, like doing more taste tests with students on locally grown products, incorporating more meats and produce in our menus and our salad bars, and then also getting our farmers more actively involved in the program within the district,” he said.
For example, Griego added, students from Rio Rancho Middle School took a field trip to a local farm to see how food is produced for incorporation into the classroom.
The program looks at five areas when determining the award: Purchasing and using New Mexico-grown food, promoting local food culture in the meal program, edible gardens, student voice and nutrition education, and sustainability of the New Mexico Grown program.
In serving nearly 16,000 students at RRPS daily (6,000 breakfasts and 10,000 lunches), Griego explained how some of those areas are incorporated into the district’s meals.
“The state did expand the Healthy Universal School Meals Program for this year, and that allows every student in our district and throughout the state one free breakfast and one free lunch every day,” he said. “The New Mexico Grown program is a grant that’s tied to Healthy Universal School Meals. We’re required to offer locally sourced produce with some of the grant money we receive.”
That grant, he said, has to be applied for every year, with the district receiving about $88,000 this year; the district also uses some of its budget to purchase additional fruits and vegetables.
Griego also said that part of the program is simply building awareness for the students and engaging them in where the food comes from as well as getting products from more farmers and ranchers on the menu for “better, high-quality meals to our students.”
They also engage the students, he said, by getting feedback from the tasted testings and other initiatives to see what some of the favorite dishes are. “Last year, during football season, we kind of did a bracketology on menu items, so carne asada french fries won last year, so our high school students really like those,” Griego said.
He said some of the hot items are the locally grown lettuce at the salad bars, particularly at the high schools, and carne asada tacos and carne asada french fries. He also noted wings being a favorite, though they’re not locally sourced, as well as items with red and green chile.
Griego also talked about how the district utilizes “New Mexico-grown products to provide culturally sensitive food to our students.”
“Within the region, Frito pies and carne asada burritos and tacos, we do a lot of those things for our kids, and they really enjoy the local products.”
He also noted that salad bars are available in every school that feature a lot of New Mexico Grown products.
Additionally, the program is working to engage with the community when it comes to what they have to offer.
“We usually have tasting events at some of our schools,” he said. “We provide locally sourced produce — and sometimes meat — sample tastings for the students that they can try and learn about where the farms are located and where they come from.”
And, Griego said, they’re really trying to expand the program.
“Last year, Southwest Food Excellence donated two hydroponic gardens that are at Colinas Elementary and Rio Rancho Elementary,” he said. “Then, we had some old salad bars, so we’re replacing some of our old salad bars with new salad bars.”
Those old salad bars, he said, will be donated to elementary schools for their STEAM classes to plant gardens to teach kids how to grow local items such as lettuce, fruits and vegetables. 
Additionally, Terri Archibeque, the district’s manager at Southwest Food Excellence, is focusing on hosting family nights and farmers’ markets at schools, according to Griego, to promote the National School Lunch program, the RRPS program and to give out local fresh produce and other items so the parents can see what the district is offering in its salad bars and menus.
“It’s kind of building more of that community awareness and maybe trying to do some more community events for our parents and students,” Griego said.
“For us at the district, this is a huge thing for us, something that we were really striving to get this year,” he said about being a Golden Chile recipient. “Obviously, we checked all the boxes and we excelled in each area, which is exciting.”
And, he was quick to share the credit.
“Southwest Food Excellence played a vital role as we work in collaboration with each other to operate and run the program and provide these quality meals to our students,” Griego said. “Our primary focus is our students in Rio Rancho Public Schools. That’s the initiative that (Superintendent) Dr. (Robert) Dodd has brought, and he really focuses in on the students and that everything we do is for the students, so keeping them in mind on the products and meals that we put on our menus is very important to the success of our program.”
And, the goal is to continue and build on the success the RRPS nutrition program has seen.
“We’re going to continue to strive to be number one, or have one of those model programs in the state,” Griengo said, “and at the same time help other schools utilize some of the successes that we’ve had at our district.”
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