Rosanna Archuleta, Head Cook for the Southern Ute Head Start program, has been awarded the ABCD award for service Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.

Archuleta was hired as Head Cook in August of 2017. She was immediately faced with having to provide breakfast, lunch and snacks for over 100 children every day with extremely limited staff resources. She worked extra hours to make sure that healthy nutritious food was available to the children during this time. Not long after this, she was required to oversee the move of the kitchen, equipment, food and staff and set up operations in a new kitchen at the Southern Ute Cultural Center.

Throughout this time, Archuleta has remained dedicated and willing to work as long as needed to assure that services to children did not suffer. Working with staff from the Southern Ute Museum and the Cultural Center, she has developed a system for delivering food to the classrooms that are operating at the Head Start site. She is focused on providing high quality food that tastes great.

Char Schank, Head Start Division Director, said, “Rosanna has proven to be a real team player who readily thinks and acts outside the box. Her positive attitude is contagious as well as her smile. She has acted selflessly and shown she has what it takes to lead the kitchen crew. We are lucky to have such a hard worker in this organization.” The award was presented to Archuleta at the SUCAP Board of Directors meeting on Dec. 7, 2017.

Southern Ute Head Start is a division of Southern Ute Community Action Programs, Inc. SUCAP honors employees who show exemplary dedication and commitment to the mission of the organization with the ABCD Award, which was initiated in 2016. For more information, please contact Eileen Wasserbach at 970-563-4517.