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WEEK OF FEBRUARY 29, 2024
VOLUME 97 | ISSUE 13
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Nurses for Filling seasonal gaps for availability of fresh, locally grown food medically
fragile kids are underpaid and hard to find BY JENNIFER BROWN THE COLORADO SUN
Nick Millisor of Ullr’s Garden tends to hydroponic lettuce sold through PineMelon.
Denver’s PineMelon partners with indoor growing vendors, delivers food year-round BY MERYL PHAIR SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Despite Colorado’s cold winter temperatures, two shipping containers at Ullr’s Garden sprout vertical panels of lettuce, arugula and basil. Equal to five acres of land and using 95% less water, the hydroponic system feeds the growing rows of
plants with essential nutrients from a constantly circulating water system while high efficiency LED lights supply them with all the sunshine they could need. “With this system we can maintain the same quality and consistency 365 days a year through the rain, snow, hail and whatever the future can throw at us,” said Nick Millisor, founder and CEO of Ullr’s. With a hyperlocal delivery zone of just five miles in central Denver, the hydroponic garden’s mission since its launch in 2022 has been to feed the local community and promote sustainability – including pursuing net zero operations – from their small niche on South Broadway in
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the Overland neighborhood. Originally from Breckenridge, naming the garden after the Norse god of snow was an easy choice for Millisor, as Ullr’s strives to build community even in the middle of winter. In working to expand their impact while maintaining their local mission, Ullr’s recently partnered with online grocery platform PineMelon, a Denver-based organization that partners with local farmers, ranchers and producers to deliver quality products at fair prices. The garden’s romaine and butterhead lettuce, arugula and living lettuce heads are currently listed on the site’s app.
Nurses willing to care for medically fragile children and adults — including patients who use feeding tubes, can’t walk or speak, and rarely leave their homes — are hard to find in Colorado. Amid a statewide nursing shortage so dire that even state mental institutions offer $14,000 signing bonuses, the lowest-paying nursing positions are going unfilled. That means many parents who have relied on “private duty nurses” for in-home care for their children and adult children are getting no help. Colorado’s Medicaid program reimburses the agencies that employ these in-home nurses at some of the lowest rates in the nation, according to the Home Care and Hospice Association of Colorado. The rate for registered nurses in Colorado is $7.05 per hour below the national median, while the rate for licensed practical nurses is $9.04 below the median, according to the association’s analysis. This puts Colorado in the bottom third of states and it’s why parents of children with extreme health issues are asking lawmakers for a $15 million boost in state funding. The money would raise Medicaid rates that pay nurses’ salaries. Parents of a 7-year-old girl with a heart defect who uses a tracheostomy tube to breathe have lost three inhome nurses to better paying jobs, leaving them on their own to resuscitate their daughter with a hand-held
SEE FRESH FOOD, P4
SEE NURSES, P6
COURTESY OF PINEMELON
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COMFORT IN A BOWL
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