FoCo Cafe awarded grant to relaunch Kids Feeding Kids program with Sproutin’ Up
Program will help provide meals to at-risk children when subsidized meals are not available through school programming.
Monday, June 29, 2026 Fort Collins, CO – FoCo Cafe was recently awarded a $10,000 grant from Northeast Health Partners to restart the Kids Feeding Kids (KFK) program designed to address childhood food insecurity in Fort Collins. KFK is designed to teach middle and high school students culinary and food safety skills while they cook breakfast for children in need.
Thanks to NHP funding, the program is free for all students, whether cooking or receiving food, and will be held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8:00-9:00 a.m. at Sproutin’ Up starting on July 7th – August 13th.
Pending the weekly yield, KFK will utilize local ingredients and fresh produce from Sproutin’ Up, Jodar Farms, and Back Gate Farm to provide nutritious, delicious meals and educate participants on the importance of supporting local agriculture.
Once cooked, prepared meals will be served at Sproutin’ Up and delivered to Hickory and Poudre Valley mobile home parks. Any remaining meals will be available in the free fridge at FoCo Cafe, 225 Maple St. after 10:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
KFK will continue into the school year on days when Poudre School District is closed and families have no or limited access to the School Breakfast Program.
To register to cook meals in Sproutin’ Up’s outdoor kitchen, middle and high school students can be signed up here
For more information, please contact Megan Greer at [email protected].
FoCo Cafe
FoCo Cafe’s mission is to build community by providing nutritious and delicious meals to the people of Fort Collins regardless of their ability to pay while using mostly local, organic, and sustainably grown ingredients.
We are a cafe & nonprofit of shared responsibility that offers healthy and delicious meals to all people on a donation basis. We are building community one plate at a time. If you can give more, please pay it forward. If you have a little less, pay what you can, or perform a chore in exchange for a meal.
Sproutin Up
Our vision is to build skills, hope, optimism and self-efficacy in youth to help them become the best version of themselves. We work with kids to train them in first job skills, social emotional learning competencies and nutrition education all while having lots of fun and providing positive mentoring. Providing a space on our farm where kids can learn how to have a job – signing in to work, tracking their hours, conducting mock interviews and dealing with customers – prepares them to be successful in our community and compete for entry level jobs.
More than 50% of the nation’s young workforce has never held a basic, paying job. We aim to change that – all while having a blast on the farm!