A sea of over 300 people, many donning their best western attire, filled the VFW Mancos Opera House on Saturday night in support of the Montezuma School to Farm Project.
Through ticket sales, food and beer sales, as well as the live and silent auctions, over $9,000 was raised for the experiential learning organization.
"The first year, we raised about $4,500, last year around $6,000, so this was a fantastic year for us," said Montezuma School to Farm director Sarah Syverson.
The turnout came as a surprise to Syverson and event volunteers.
Sweetwater Gypsies' taco bar, which featured Stubborn Farm and Burks beef, tomatoes from Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, greens from Confluence Farm, and squash from Little Bits Farm - sold out of food before the event was over. Volunteers had to run out for pizzas to satisfy hungry ticket holders.
Three kegs of beer donated by Dolores River Brewery were also tapped-out before the end of the night.
The crowd was kept going by music from the Six Dollar String Band, Carute Roma, and The Badly Bent. Dancers young, old, and in-between squeezed in on the floor for a space, boot-stomping and square-dancing until the end of the night.
"I thought the floor was going to give out in there for a minute!," joked Syverson.
The funding from the hoedown goes to support the growing program's 2015-2016 initiatives.
Montezuma School to Farm is working on a vertical growing system at the Mancos school garden, which entails planting vertically on the fence lines. The group is also building an adobe oven at Cortez Middle School this year and installing an aquaponics system at the Dolores Schools garden site.
There are also plans to further expand into Cortez's five elementary schools, and build an outdoor kitchen at the Cortez Middle School site that would allow for cooking classes centered around straight-from-the-garden ingredients. Syverson hopes to eventually open the classes to the community, as they were a key ingredient in the success of this year's Spring Hoedown.
"We were incredibly surprised at the community support, and the support for our kids and school gardens," said Syverson. "We feel it in our day-to-day work, but it's so nice to come together once or twice a year... to get to see it on a large scale, to see all those people in one room, was truly amazing."
