{"id":22266,"date":"2025-05-13T22:13:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T04:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-health-systems-kitchen-staff-serves-up-community-support\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:12:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:12:47","slug":"southwest-health-systems-kitchen-staff-serves-up-community-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-health-systems-kitchen-staff-serves-up-community-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Health System\u2019s kitchen staff serves up community support"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southwest
Southwest Health System\u2019s director of Food and Nutrition, Karen Hubley. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Karen Hubley has worked at Southwest Health System for almost 11 years.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s a certified dietary manager, working in the hospital\u2019s kitchen as the director of food and nutrition, though she and her team have helped people in the broader community.<\/p>\n

Her motivation, she said, lies in thinking, \u201cHow can we serve the community through the hospital?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hospital is more than patient care,\u201d Hubley said. \u201cI\u2019m here to support the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kitchen, she said, is pretty much zero-waste: \u201cOur only exception is the leftovers from patients\u2019 trays that we do not repurpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renew Inc., the women\u2019s shelter in Cortez, and the Bridge Emergency Shelter receive most of its food donations.<\/p>\n

Hubley explained how the hospital has a \u201cthree-day rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day that something is prepared counts as Day One, and by Day Three, the food goes to shelters.<\/p>\n

The partnership between Bridge and the hospital goes back several years, she said, in an effort \u201cto provide better nutrition for our homeless population.\u201d<\/p>\n

To fulfill that goal, in addition to donating food, Southwest Health System donates $5,000 every year to the Bridge to help it cover the weekly cost of milk, eggs and butter. It also helped the shelter purchase a milk machine.<\/p>\n

Food items that are no longer shelf stable and can\u2019t be donated are given to employees who raise chickens and pigs.<\/p>\n

Plus, throughout the day, employees fill a 5-gallon bucket with food scraps like scrambled eggs, fruit and even maple syrup, which ultimately ends up in the trough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pigs love maple syrup,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe also steps out of her regular job to volunteer in the community,\u201d said Jaycee Hart, marketing specialist at Southwest Health System.<\/p>\n

Hubley volunteers as a member of Montezuma County\u2019s Food Security Action Team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hospital has been part of the team since its inception,\u201d said Emily Huminski, the director of Team UP, which is the \u201cbackbone\u201d of many collaborative efforts in the county.<\/p>\n

The Food Security Action Team started seven years ago to foster food security in the county, especially for kids, said Huminski.<\/p>\n

Last year, it had a summer meal program for kids that ran out of the Montezuma-Cortez school district. It served kids free breakfast and lunch \u2013 parents could come and pick up five days\u2019 worth of meals for their kids at once.<\/p>\n

It operated in June and July and served 30,888 meals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat works out to 996 meals a day,\u201d said Huminksi. \u201cAnd we hardly promoted it. The need is telling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, it may not run this year \u2013 staffing changes at Montezuma-Cortez made it so they\u2019re unable to spearhead it, and there\u2019s a lot of administrative work to do, like tracking meals for reimbursements. Plus, someone has to actually prepare the meals, she said.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, at a federal level, there are threats to cut the free lunch program that serves kids throughout the school year. In effect, \u201cit\u2019s complicated,\u201d said Huminski.<\/p>\n

Aside from last year\u2019s successful summer meal program, the action team also hosts food drives and started other projects, like Grow a Row. That program makes it so \u201canyone can grow an extra row of produce and donate it to Good Sam\u2019s pantry,\u201d said Hubley.<\/p>\n

The hospital also helped Good Sam\u2019s purchase a vehicle for food deliveries and \u201cwe work with the Good Food Collective on gleaning trees with local farmers to get fresh fruits to our local pantry,\u201d said Hubley.<\/p>\n

There are others within the department that volunteer their time as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe food and nutrition team has some amazing individuals that enjoy sharing with our community,\u201d said Hubley.<\/p>\n

One member sat in as a judge at a competition where Girl Scouts deconstructed cookies and made new desserts. Another has volunteered his videography skills and kept score for middle and high school sports games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen a change in the attitudes of both the community and within our own walls here at SHS,\u201d Hubley said. \u201cThanks to everyone\u2019s hard work and dedication to improving our home \u2026 I am proud to work at Southwest Health System.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director and team provide food to shelters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77639,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266\/revisions\/77639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22266"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}