Celebrate A Bountiful Harvest Season with Mountain Roots Food Project
Jump into fall with some of Mountain Root's community-oriented programs full of fresh produce, harvest buffets and holiday food boxes
Photos courtesy of Mountain Roots Food Project
Every fall, one of Colorado’s largest food systems organizations – Mountain Roots Food Project – celebrates the bountiful harvest season, while offering programs that harness the power of a strong local food system. We’ve rounded up three impactful, community-oriented programs from Mountain Root to share this Fall season:
Back-to-school season: Mountain Roots’ K-12 – and beyond – Farm to School programs include free fresh produce boxes delivered to preschool teachers, six-week cooking classes for kids, after-school clubs that teach students about gardening, kid-focused food entrepreneurship programs, 1000+ hours of environmental science taught in K-8 classrooms, and even “Beginning Farmer Training Program,” which teaches regenerative agriculture to young adults.
Harvest Hoedown, Sept. 29: The FREE Sixth Annual Harvest Hoedown celebrates the harvest and all who make it possible with a harvest buffet featuring meats raised locally by 4H students, and peak organic vegetables from local farms, along with local craft beer, hard cider, and kombucha, a kids’ activity tent, square dancing and live bluegrass music. This year’s event will be held at the Train Cars at the South Main Gunnison.
Holiday Food Box: In 2021, 20 million American households reported not having enough food around Thanksgiving. For the past five years, Mountain Roots has distributed fresh, locally sourced Holiday Harvest boxes of ingredients for special holiday meals for food insecure households, made possible with food from their and others’ community gardens. Boxes are distributed before Thanksgiving, and again right before Christmas.
