Join us in The Great Zucchini Roundup! Grow SECO, an initiative of Ogallala Commons, is supporting a culture-shift to get local food grown in southeastern Colorado, for the bellies and bodies of southeastern Colorado. By starting with Zucchini, a supply chain will be created and stewarded across the Arkansas Valley of SECO to then be received by local schools: Springfield ISD, Vilas School District RE-5, and Campo ISD. Seeds will be distributed to community members, advocates, families, and students, with producers even having the ability to sign purchase agreements to receive payment for their produce. Transportation will be organized for delivery points then to receive, process, and store harvests. All measures will be taken to be in compliance with the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act and to ensure that Zucchini makes farm-to-cafeteria protocol in Health Department certified kitchens, both by the state of Colorado and the USDA. The districts will then be provided with recipes successfully used in other Colorado school districts to hopefully meet all their needs for pasta sauce, muffins, and salad bar toppings! Join us in the growing, distribution, and processing of Zucchini for farm-to-school efforts in SECO!

If interested, please attend the kickoff for the Great Zucchini Roundup on March 26th at the Springfield Fairgrounds indoor venue space: the Minnick Building! The roles and responsibilities for the various parts of the supply chain are key to understand and solid commitments are necessary as perishable, time-sensitive handoffs of produce move across the region.

The morning event will consist of growing tips, basic processing procedure when it comes time to bring the harvest to the kitchen, ability to enter into a formal producer contract, and seed distribution.

DAY'S AGENDA

9AM - Breakfast & Arrive

9:15AM - Intros & Overview

9:45AM - Seed Distribution & Producer Contracts

10:15AM - Shredding Demo: Processing Zucs

11:00AM - Food System Matchmaker: How we will communicate

11:45AM - Lunch & Adjourn