Raices del Saber de Xinachtli, is a State Public Charter Community School which is developing a replicable model utilizing ancestral knowledge based in nature, growing the school’s roots while constructing their own knowledge, and addressing systemic barriers that prevent our students and families from succeeding in education and in life. Key components of the school’s foundation are identity formation, community led, indigenous knowledge embedded into the curriculum that manifests every day in the school including ancestral food and nutrition, and bilingualism-multiculturalism. Raices is located in Southern New Mexico and serves the greater communities of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the colonias along the borderlands of the United States. 90% of the community population are economically disadvantaged and 84% of the community members identify as Hispanic.

With the support of a FoodCorps Americorps Service member, Rai­ces started a sustainable garden classroom in which many lessons regarding nutrition and healthy choices will be a part of the daily/weekly curriculum both in school and in the after school program. The Service-member will support Tasty Traditions, which is a bi-monthly cooking lesson with all grade levels. With the support of the FoodCorps service member, Rai­ces also hopes to create a sustainable foodservice system that will support our growing school. And lastly and most importantly the Foodcorps service member will support the Nauhi Ollin Garden, in both maintenance and continuing the use of this garden for community outreach, for both the school-wide community and the greater community of the areas in which Rai­ces serves.

The FoodCorps service member at Raices is a part of the New Mexico cohort that includes 9 service members across 5 different service sites.

Service sites in New Mexico are located in what has come to be known as the cities of Farmington, Bernalillo, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Anthony. We acknowledge and seek to continually honor that all land within the present borders of New Mexico were originally entrusted and stewarded by Indigenous Peoples. Through a journey of cultural humility, we serve at each site with the knowledge that each of these geographical and cultural boundaries have been constructed as a result of unjust historical events. New Mexico prides itself on our population, which consists of a majority of People of Color, and the deep well of cultural assets each ethnic group adds to our communities. As a result of racist ideologies and concurrent policies that have systematically marginalized these populations, New Mexico currently has the lowest quality of life for children and some of highest hunger and poverty rates in the nation. With this historical pretext and a systems change approach as the foundation, service members will engage with children, families and communities to offer food education through a decolonial, equitable, anti-racist lens with support from site supervisors, community, and state staff.