FNS is an $11.2M operating budget appropriation that is “Break-Even;”
3,566,643 Meals were served in SY2012 in 66 locations, including 2 private schools, Discover Goodwill, Irving Educational Center, and 5 Charter School Institute (CSI) sites;
D11 Food Service Fund paid back $862,000 in Indirect/Direct expenses to the General Fund;
Approximately 300 department ESP Employees work in the department;
Our Services Include:
We revamped our 5 Base Kitchens into 4 high performing Production Centers (Coronado, Doherty, Mitchell, and Wasson) to achieve greater efficiency and quality with scratch cooking preparation. D11 Good Food Project standards for healthy, fresh food were fully implemented so that all food served to students is either scratch-cooked or minimally processed foods with clean labels. Vegetarian choices, foods containing pork, and “Harvest of the Month” selections are denoted on school menus with special logos. We are purchasing “local” whenever we can, adding approximately $750,000 back to the local economy this year through local purchases of beef, milk, fruits, vegetables, and yes, coffee for our adult catering services!
Through a grant at Galileo MS, we built a 42’ geodesic dome greenhouse and began the Galileo Garden Project, where we grow fresh vegetables and herbs to utilize throughout the department. We also began a new community partnership this Spring with Discover Goodwill to serve healthy, sustainable foods to their disabled and elderly adult clients in two of their site cafeterias as a way to generate additional income to cover fixed costs of the department.
We received a half-million dollar equipment grant from the Colorado Health Foundation.
Our team also built and published a “healthy fundraiser” list of alternatives to school fundraisers to the D11 FNS web site.
We eliminated 4.2 pounds of added sugar from every elementary student’s diet who purchases D11 School Meals by eliminating Chocolate Milk from school meals at that level. Media: We received national attention with the Sunbelt Foodservice magazine, Food Service Director magazine and CBS Evening News. Locally, Rick Hughes was a panelist in the El Paso County’s Weight of the Nation discussion and WAS NOT featured as a part of the “Pink Slime” beef purchasing debacle. D11 FNS was also featured in articles in the Gazette and in the local news for the D11 Good Food Project efforts. D11 FNS was also featured in EdNewsColorado and won a runner-up award with the National Restaurant Association; both for our Allergy Management System. We also implemented a “food rescue” operation at ten of our schools to provide food at the Westside Community Center’s “Meal and a Movie” program for families in tough economic situations. This program served about 50 family members every Friday evening during the school year.
We began a partnership with the Colorado Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and AspenPointe to widen our scope of the potential employee pool for FNS.