Services & PROGRAMS

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Our center absorbed the Nucla Naturita Food Bank in July of 2014. Until May 2016, the food we were distributing was donated and bought from local merchants. The reason for this was that we were in a unique situation where the county line between Montrose County and San Miguel County is also the distribution borderline for Food Bank of the Rockies and Care and Share. This made transportation costs too high for us to be able to buy food at lower costs from Food Bank of the Rockies. Even though the Care and Share delivery truck drove right through our area of Montrose County to deliver food orders to another county, they could not deliver food to us since our county was not in their service area. We worked for almost two years to find a solution to make delivery affordable which is having Food Bank of the Rockies deliver our orders to Callaway Packing in Delta who delivers them, on their regular delivery days to our area, at a discounted price.This newly formed partnership also allowed us to provide 483 meals to kids during the summer through the CATCH program and Montrose West Recreations “Fun in the Sun” program, with the USDA Summer Food Service Program. We also addressed one of the top priorities identified in our 2015 Needs Assessment of bringing back senior commodities to our area. In June 2016, we started distributing both USDA* food programs for seniors, Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), and families, The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). With the addition of CSFP and TEFAP we almost tripled the amount of food services we provided and almost doubled the number of clients receiving food services in the last half of 2016

* This institution is an Equal Opportunity Provider

We provide clients with assistance to fill out and submit LEAP applications and through being a partner agency for Energy Outreach Colorado. We helped eight clients fill out and submit LEAP applications for energy assistance through the winter. We also provided assistance 50 clients and paid a total of $20,904.07 for 59 utility bills, with an additional administrative cost of $1,071.02 (5%). Energy Fuel Type Percentages 47.4% Electric,  20.5% Natural Gas, 19.7% Propane, 7.5% Firewood/Pellets, 4.9% Administrative

Comprehensive family services are the primary responsibility of a family resource center. In 2016, we were in the final stages of redeveloping and firming up our core services. For the first nine months we had three part-time staff members which equaled 1.15 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE). Because of this our main focus was on client basic needs, referrals, and healthy living programs with little time left for the comprehensive family services. In October 2016, we were able to hire a part-time Family Development Worker increasing our staff to 1.65 FTE.

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However, in spite of this limited staff we were able to provide 70 referrals to both internal and external programs, sign up 13 participants for the Bright by Three program, provide 16 home visits, enroll 4 participants into our reinstituted Toy Lending Library, provide critical services to a family abandoned in our area, and have two staff members certified as a Nurturing Parenting Facilitator.

Foods and Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH). Through these programs we provided 252 total services.

Eating Smart Being Active: The eight core lessons of the curriculum cover topics about physical activity, nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices, cooking, saving money at the grocery store, food safety, and feeding children. Every lesson consists of hands-on activities, food preparation activity, tasting, and physical activity. This program was presented to 7 participants in 2016, for a total of 46 services.

Exploring Foods Together: In collaboration with the Naturita Preschool, we use a toolkit of simple activities to help kids learn about new foods and start building the skills to make healthy food choices. All of the activities are field-tested and easy to use, centered around 5 basic food concepts: ◦Food Identification and Tasting: Name That Food; ◦Food Purchasing: Supermarket Hot and Cold; ◦Food Preparation: Imaginary Cooking; ◦Food Origins: We Eat Tops and Bottoms!; and ◦Food Culture: Exploring Tables Around the World. All lessons presented consist of reading stories, a fun food related activity, and snack preparation and tasting. This program was presented to 10 preschoolers for a total of 55 services.

Summer CATCH Kids Club: CATCH Kids Club (CKC) is a physical activity and nutrition education program designed for elementary and middle school aged children (grades K – 8) that we use in the summer three days a week, two hours a day (nutrition education and at least 60 minutes of physical activity), for four weeks. We had a total of 16 participants for 151 services.

These programs were provided through a grant received by Family Resource Center Association from the Colorado Health Foundation.