August had many of us in “back to school” mode, so of course, our team has been thinking about the key asset of “Education” this month. At Ogallala Commons, we define “Education” simply as “the local resources for learning.” This reflection from our Director of Development (former intern and business teacher) Megan, reminds us that a vibrant community requires the compilation and transmission of skills, information, and knowledge of all kinds. Across generations. Across aisles. Across borders:

As a professional educator (who grew up in a family of professional educators), my understanding of education has been steeped in the academic values of a healthy school system literally since birth. It was, indeed, a school system that set me up for many of the things I’m most proud of in my life. It was—and still is—a rural school system with limited resources, traditional class periods, textbooks, assignments, grades, and all the things you’d imagine seeing in a typical classroom. What it had in addition to those ingredients, though, was a special something that made learning feel truly magical to me.

Years after my own graduation, I found the classroom I called my own as a teacher had many of the same ingredients. As a new teacher, though, I wasn’t quite sure how to use those ingredients to create a recipe for the thing that makes so many classrooms across the world turn simple ingredients into that same magic I felt as a student.

I was blessed with several incredible mentor teachers. As I watched them, listened to their experience, and gained a bit more of my own, I was reminded of OC’s definition of education more and more. Education is about the local resources for learning. Everywhere I looked at the best experiences in my own education—and those I observed and heard from others—the magic in the recipe of good education wasn’t in a particular textbook or teaching method. It wasn’t in understanding every nuance of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. It was in the way local educators used the (often limited) resources available to them to open doors for students to explore the world around them, even when they weren’t able to physically leave the community.

Educators in so many of our school systems have become masters of using local resources for learning. In turn, they can—and have—turned the whole community into a classroom and their fellow community members into fellow educators. Animal science classes walk to a local rancher’s calving barn. Accounting classes visit a local small business to learn about inventory management. Health science students get certified as Emergency Medical Responders. Alumni hop on a video call with a Civics class to share their experiences at the Supreme Court. PE teachers call in local retirees to lead line dancing classes. Food science classes learn cake decorating from local bakeries and how to grow their own food from local farmers. Each lesson shows that the skills we learn from textbooks can have immediate, real-life applications.

While I’m no longer in the official classroom, I’m carrying this lesson with me into new “classrooms”: education is everywhere, and it’s the responsibility of all of us.

I recently visited the office of the education mentor I began learning from in elementary school. In all the time I’ve known her, she’s had a simple printed note stuck on the wall behind her computer desk. It’s an old proverb that has been used in many contexts, but remains true: “It takes a village to raise a child.”

The magic of education isn’t in the textbook—it’s in the village. In the people we learn from and learn with. It’s the lessons I learned in the back of my grandad’s ranch pickup checking fences, under the sink in my new home learning plumbing from my dad, on the couch learning to love reading with my mom, and on a lettuce farm learning hydroponics from a local farmer.

If education is everywhere, we all share the weight—and the joy—of being educators. Of making sure the knowledge, skills, and information we have access to can be compiled and transmitted beyond us.

That’s not magic—it’s simply creativity and hard work.

And rural communities have already proven we are pretty good with those.

Students Growing Food

Speaking of creative education: One of the highlights of August for our team was a celebration of youth engagement in the Southeast Colorado local foods world! Vilas School District and Campo School District joined the MyFoodshed team, along with our collaborators and Nourish Colorado and presenters from the Colorado Department of Education and Hunger Free Colorado to take a deep dive into the world of Colorado School Foods.

At the 2026 Southeast Colorado Local Foods Summit, students engaged in workshop activities, contributing their ideas for school menus and learning about school food legislation, before sharing the story of their schools’ food production.

An incredible meal, full of local produce from Southeast Colorado (including plenty from school farms) was catered by chefs from Nourish Colorado before attendees were sent off on guided tours of the farms at both Campo and Vilas.

Below: Campo students share the impacts of their school farm work

Vilas students showcased their goat and pig livestock operation, a vibrant vegetable garden, and shared how the food students produce at the farm goes to feed the students through the school cafeteria, food waste helps feed livestock and create healthy soil, and extra products are shared with the community and put to work in student businesses like one student’s entrepreneurial experience as a baker.

In Campo, students shared how their farm uses a geodesic dome greenhouse to regulate temperatures year-round, and how their aquaponics system contributes to growing thriving produce that can be used in the cafeteria or sold at a new community farmer’s market they are launching this fall. Students shared that there is no feeling like seeing food you’ve grown with your own hands on a table that is feeding yourself and others, and that the hands-on opportunities provided by these programs makes their learning feel even more real and important.

Below: Vilas students with tour attendees and some Vilas-grown produce!

Community Food Access Tax Credit

Open Now: Colorado Community Food Access Tax Credit
Ogallala Commons provides technical assistance to Colorado local producers and small food retailers looking to apply for the Colorado CFA Tax Credit for large equipment purchases or Consortium Member Delivery Fees tax credit! Learn more below and reach out to justin@ogallalacommons.org with questions.
More: ag.colorado.gov/markets/markets-funding/community-food-access-program