KIDS CO-OP
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Mission Statement
The Kids Co-op Mission is to engage youth to co-lead, develop and implement project and business ideas that make beneficial changes in their community that strengthen shared values, fill discovered needs, provide local food access, and enhances economic development. The Kids Co-op and Montana Co-op received the 2023-2025 USDA Farm to School grant that is giving 6 school districts in Sanders County, MT a greenhouse, a salad bar, an indoor grow tower, and providing a food ordering and distribution service to all schools and communities through an online farmers market the Kids Co-op manage as a school fundraiser and part time job for students.
About This Cause
The Kids Co-op is working a program called "Nutrition Montana" that leads to local and nutritious food access for all communities in Montana by working a strategic plan developed during the forming of the Montana Co-op in 2011/2012. A key role of the Kids Co-op is to educate and motivate junior high and high school youth to engage in learning all aspects of the food chain followed up with meaningful jobs. We're expecting the Kids Co-op gardens, kitchens and markets will serve every community on the CSKT reservation with access to local, healthy foods, year round. The Kids Co-op is proving a model that starts with the school and students providing a civic service by assessing the community needs and values. In addition to leading collective impact projects, the students also work to set up a food hub in their community that starts by filling the needs of the community while building a collaborative food sovereignty team including every local agency and organization involved in soil retention, food production, processing, aggregating, distribution, and local food consumption in the area. In addition to education, the Kids Co-op gives real life experiences that empowers our future generations to become interested in careers in the local food industry (growing, preparing, marketing, selling, accounting, delivering, serving). Once each student has experienced a full perspective of how food gets produced and on to their plate, they can choose to work with other Kids Co-op members and Montana Co-op mentors in a job of their liking (after school, part of class, and/or summer). The Kids Co-op partners with Salish & Kootenai College and Native Teaching Aids to produce a Food Sovereignty Board Game that will be used in the schools to make learning the food chain to be fun and challenging!