 Greetings! Welcome to one of the most special times of year: When tomatoes, eggplant, basil, summer squashes, green beans, and gold potatoes are all bursting out of the garden or farm at the SAME time! It’s nature’s way of telling us to eat ratatouille one night and salade niçoise the next. As usual, we have updates below on upcoming trainings and policy activities (yes, it is time to start thinking about Farm Bill 2023!). With August kicking off back to school, there are plenty of events to sign up for and share with school districts below. We also have several partners we want you to meet in our changemaker highlights, and we welcome our new Community Food Advocate, Wonda Perez! Lastly, please check out and share our new opportunities to join our team as a lobbying firm, Director of Finance & Operations, and Culinary Specialist! -The Nourish Team |
| HEALTHY FOOD INCENTIVES |
 Welcome Wonda Perez! Nourish Colorado welcomed a new team member to the Double Up Food Bucks advocate team—Wonda Perez is passionate about being of service in her community and has enthusiastically stepped into her role as an Advocate with fresh ideas for spreading the word about Double Up. Wonda will be focusing her outreach efforts on Commerce City and Aurora. |
| HEALTHY FOOD IN INSTITUTIONS |
| Local Procurement Colorado (LoProCO) & Culinary Trainings August signals the end of summer with back to school and prime harvest season. Melons, peaches, corn, tomatoes, peppers, and so much more are ripe and ready to be enjoyed. Don’t miss this opportunity! Now is an excellent time to identify and sign up for the upcoming events to support and promote all the amazing food you can find in our state. Check out the events below and either sign up or ask your local school district if they have signed up! |
 |
| Colorado Proud School Meal Day on Sept 21. Sign up Here! Keep an eye out for a cooking video promoting a Colorado Proud School Meal Recipe featuring Chef Jess! Farm to School Month starts October 1! Watch for opportunities to promote Colorado-grown! Mark your calendars for the Mountain Plains Crunch-Off on October 20. This is a multi-state competition with people, organizations, and schools all signing up to crunch into some crunchable produce. Sign Up Here! Nebraska has won for several years, so let’s take the title! We also have our LoProCO monthly calls and a few more culinary trainings coming up. Check them out! Our June call was cancelled due to Chef Jess losing power but that doesn’t mean the call will never happen! We have rescheduled it for Sept 7 from 2-3 pm. Join us to discuss “Sprouting Conversations – Building the Farm to School Movement” and learn more about cucumbers and radishes. Register Here. Our September LoProCO call is scheduled for the 28 from 2-3 pm. Andrea Alma, the USDA Food and Nutrition Services Regional Farm to School Lead will be joining us to share all the ways that USDA supports Farm to School, including coordinating the Farm to School Grant! We will feature Colorado peppers and chilies! Register Here. |
 NEW DATES! Our Early Childcare Food Service Workers are also getting a virtual knife skills training that is open to ALL ECE providers! This is a two-part series with Part 1 scheduled for Sep 11 and Part 2 scheduled for Sep 18. Both trainings run from 9-9:45 am and you will need to plan to attend both. Participants will receive a gift card and box full of goodies to ensure you are ready to practice your knife skills. This is an excellent opportunity to gain some hands-on practice! Registration closes on August 30 to allow us time to pack boxes and ship materials.Register Here for English | Register Here for Spanish See more info here: English Flyer and Spanish Flyer. Limited spots available! Due to popular demand, CDE and Nourish Colorado will be offering another virtual knife skills training for up to 40 participants for K-12 food service providers. It is a two-part series with Part 1 scheduled for Sept 22 and Part 2 scheduled for Sept 29. Both trainings run from 2-3 pm and you will need to plan to attend both. Each training also includes a recipe demonstration using all the delicious vegetables you learned how to cut. Participants will receive a gift card to cover the cost of food along with a grocery and equipment list to ensure you are ready to practice your knife skills! This training is an excellent opportunity for your cooks to gain some hands-on practice while receiving two hours of professional development credits. Registration closes on Sept 16. Sign up here! |
| HEALTHY FOOD SYSTEMS POLICY |
 2023 Farm Bill Wow, how time flies! Believe it or not, it is time to start talking about the 2023 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is a key piece of legislation for both agricultural systems in our country but also the food system. It includes many elements from conservation to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Farm Bill also supports and funds many of Nourish’s own projects such as Double Up Food Bucks. It also supports and funds our partners projects such as land access programs for Beginning and Young Farmers. The Farm Bill also comes with deep gaps in funding for specialty crops (most fruits and vegetables) and structural racism and inequities. There is so much room for improvement, and we want Colorado’s communities to have a voice in influencing this key piece of legislation and reimagining our food system. You are invited to get involved! Nourish Colorado’s Food Bill Action Team (meeting every other week) will be hosting a series of conversations about the Farm Bill. Check out our slides from our Farm Bill 101 (Part 1). Sign up for the Food Bill Action Team here. For questions, or if you’d like to present on the Farm Bill or other food systems policy, contact amy@nourishcolorado.org. |
| FOOD SYSTEMS CHANGEMAKERS |
 NFP Partners Spotlight Laura Jorstad and Nicci Hardman Welcoming a new core partner! NFP Partners has joined our team as our accounting and finance consultants. For over 15 years, NFP Partners has provided nonprofit and governmental organizations with expert consulting and top-notch customer support. They are a team of accounting professionals dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations fulfill their missions through strong financial management. They accomplish this through a partnership with their clients working together to meet the challenges of growth, operational efficiency, accountability, and regulation. NFP Partners offers extensive experience in the not-for-profit sector and a deep understanding of accounting technology tools. Laura Jorstad has been with NFP Partners since 2010 and Nicci Hardman has been providing support to clients of NFP Partners since 2017. Both have extensive experience in nonprofit accounting, specifically working with grant funded organizations and have spent countless hours preparing nonprofit finance statements, staffing annual audits, and completing grant compliance reviews. |
 |
| MENV Graduate Students Spotlight Liz Holland, Lindsey Beatrice, Elias Berbari, Sarah Thorson, Cole Dickerson, Hannah Wallace, Olivia Brown We learned a lot and hope you did too from the talented and passionate students of CU Boulder Masters of the Environment (MENV) Graduate Program, with whom we partnered on our summer blog series, Root Down, Rise Up with MENV! Topics ranged across climate change and food security, farm workers and food justice, addressing nutrition and food insecurity, and revitalizing Indigenous food ways. The students write, “Now, we need to figure out how to tie it all together. How do we create a more sustainable, resilient, equitable food system that ensures all people are fed? The first step is to work on improving food literacy, for both adults and kids.” Check out the final blog of the series on culturally relevant food literacy and the full summer blog series. This may be a wrap on the blog, but the critical conversations will continue with three upcoming virtual events with Nourish Colorado, MENV grad students, and special guests this fall. Stay tuned and engage in important topics around Land Access and Ownership, Values-Based Procurement, and Healthy Food Incentives and Disincentives. |
 |
| Opportunities Join our team! We are hiring for full-time Culinary Specialist and Director of Finance and Operations positions, as well as a lobbyist contract position. Learn more and apply or share with your networks. We regularly update the events calendar on our website to host the incredible meetings and events happening in the food systems space. We promote both Nourish Colorado events and partner event opportunities like Pueblo Food Project’s upcoming Sun, Soil, Water conference in November. Please submit any upcoming events and details or open job opportunities you’d like to share to Amber Clemetson. Let’s Dig In! Together to Transform the Food System Thank you for digging in with us again this month, and we hope you continue to read our newsletter each month! If you haven’t already, please subscribe. We are working to sustain – and grow – our initiatives across the state and to do the advocacy we know must be done to make these efforts the norm. Through an individual contribution or a corporate sponsorship, we most respectfully ask that you contribute whatever you can, whenever you can, to support our work and help us in these endeavors. For every part you play in transforming the food system, we appreciate you! |
 Nourish Colorado Nourish Colorado 1490 Lafayette St., #403 Denver, CO 80218 | Get In Touch Support Our Work |
