Farmington high school gets its own food truck

FARMINGTON, N.M. – It’s an exciting week for one of the smallest schools in the Farmington Municipal School District. 

Rocinante High School didn’t have a kitchen and would have to bring in lunches from a different school each day. However, that all changed Tuesday when they unveiled a new lunchtime addition that could make the other schools a little jealous.

“When they decided to make Rocinante a school, the kitchen was not really thought of in that design,” Marie Johnson, Farmington Municipal Schools student nutrient coordinator said.

Kelli Stradling, the K12 by ELIOR general manager added, “We have very limited serving space available to the high school it’s just an older school, and it’s had to serve out of the little closet.”

So Farmington Municipal Schools got the wheels turning on a creative solution.

“(The food truck) falls in line with the more trendy options that the students don’t like the institutional feel as much, and we want to give them that option to feel like they’re going outside to a food truck to get lunch,” Stradling said.

Johnson applied for a No Kid Hungry grant back in 2020, and the district was awarded $50,000 for the project.

“We finally got our truck in March of 2022, COVID played havoc in that whole process too there was a lot of supply chain issues but we finally got through it, and she’s finally here,” said Johnson. 

Now students are lining up, and not for your average lunch.

“We are going to feature more of a street menu here to kind of go along with the food truck,” Johnson said. 

And this truck will be serving students all year long.

“When the (weather) gets a little bit colder we’re looking at options like a hot coco bar, the high schoolers are able to have coffee, so bringing out the hot coffee,” Stradling said. 

And they are hoping by making lunch fun, it will feed more students.

“It’s very important to us that we nourish every one of our students and anything that we can do to get them to eat is what we are looking at. We just wanted to expand and increase our participation here and we felt that with this truck that would draw them,” Johnson said.

The food truck will stay primarily at Rocinante High School, but the district will also take it to athletic and community events.