Let’s give a warm Charger welcome to our new Head Food and Nutrition Manager, Ms. Zamora! I had the privilege to sit down and take the time to interview her. Here is a little background on her, the changes that will be made, plus some new additions as well!

Ms. Zamora has lived in Denver for almost 7 years now! She is originally from San Diego which is why she absolutely loves the ocean and all things beach! Besides her current profession in culinary, Ms. Zamora has background in finance where she has worked in banks, credit unions, done auto loans and things like that. Culinary in schools is where her heart is at. Ms. Zamora worked at Coronado Elementary School before Chatfield and really loved the community there but is super excited to be apart of the Charger family! She is extremely passionate about bringing awareness to Childhood Cancer and helping families who have been affected. She lost her younger son, Joel to Osteosarcoma (a much too common form of childhood cancer) in April of 2020. He was a 6th grader at Deer Creek when he passed away. She has been fortunate enough to work with local charities and speak at events to bring awareness and raise money that goes directly to families affected by Childhood Cancer. Last September, the students at Coronado Elementary helped her collect and decorate about 300 bags for a local organization “There with Care” that provides home deliveries of groceries and household essentials to families with children undergoing treatment. It’s a huge part of who she is and also why the Jeffco community is so important to her!

She has a great background in culinary, mostly working at schools such as Coronado and private schools in San Diego (doing all their food/nutrition for preschool and kindergarten up through 5th grade). 

She is a part of the head central office committee this year that helps taste test all of the food products and determine the healthiest and, of course, tastiest products that will be served next year. Their chef starts out with a huge amount of items – for example, they did all of their chicken products (chicken patties, sandwiches, tenders) and they start with 50 products and scale it down to where they test it. They’ll start with about 10-20 items, go through and scale it on the taste, looks, quality, and go from there to insure that they give the best tasting and healthiest product. 

When asked what changes will be made, Ms. Zamora stated she, “wants to make sure everyone knows that the cafeteria, food/kitchen services are a welcoming environment to every student; a program that every single student is able to use every single day and to build relationships with the students as well!”

Her reason for coming to Chatfield is that her son is a junior at Chatfield so she has been a Chatfield parent for a while, so it’s super fun to be on the staff side! She loves what Chatfield is doing, collaborating with the principal and all the admins, and seeing posts on social media. The community is so great that she really wanted to join and be a part of it!

Some additional changes she looks to make is extending breakfast hours as they can serve breakfast until 10am. She would like to keep it open so students can still buy breakfast later, or buy snacks. If the kitchen is open, you can swing by!

Ms. Zamora’s favorite food to make is the new barbacoa items. There will be 3 items on the menu this year: Barbacoa Nachos, Tacos, and Barbacoa Bowl with Rice. They’re her favorites!

We are thrilled to have Ms. Zamora join the Charger community and wish her nothing but success and happiness!