Patricia Downing Awarded the 2024 NMACTE Community Service Award

GRANTS, NM – The New Mexico Association and Technical Education announced Patricia Downing as the 2024 NMACTE Community Service Award winner, the award is to recognize individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to career and technical education.

Downing who has been working in the restaurant industry for almost 40 years is now currently the teacher for the National Restaurant Association ProStart Program at Grants High School. She is also the advisor for the Grants High School FCCLA/Evolvement Chapter.

“I’ve worked in the hospitality industry and restaurants since I was 16 years old. Right out of high school I got my degree in education but I didn’t like teaching English as much as I thought I would. So, I continued working in the restaurant industry,” Downing said. “After several years – 30 plus years – working on concrete floors, my physical health was not where it needed to be to continue to work in restaurants.” Following this, Downing said she went to culinary school and earned her degree, later working Grants High School and applied for the culinary teacher position and ended up being hired.

Downing said, “At least here in Grants community service started because of the culinary program. My first year here, one of the police officers at that time had spoken to me about, would you be willing to cater a breakfast for the police department, and it started there. That started our whole catering program, word started getting out and everyone wanted us to cater.” Downing said through catering she and her students were able to meet with community leaders and members and were able to grow their community service.

With the beginning of FCCLA in 2017, Downing and her students got more involved in community service. She said, “The kids were just like, ‘well let’s do more, these are some problems that we see in the community let’s do more.’ They started noticing really bad substance abuse issues in our community and so they created a youth coalition for the prevention of substances and helping people get resources to get clean.” Downing said that over the years the students have really taken over the program and really want to be involved in community service and making the region a better place.

Downing said, “I’ve had several students that would come to me, the first day they would come into my class and be like, ‘Just so you know I have no intention of going to college,’ and they’re in college now, not just for culinary but I have a couple of students that are working towards a culinary education program, and that’s seven years.” Downing said that she gets emotional when she thinks about students going into culinary programs after taking her class, “These kids that had no intention of going to college at the beginning of their freshman year or sophomore year, and then they spend some time in my class and they decide that this career or pathway that I had chosen is not what they want anymore, going straight into industry is not what they want to do anymore and it’s all because of their contact and experience with me. It’s just really humbling; I didn’t think I had that much of an impact on my students for a long time.”

Downing said that it was funny when she first found out about her winning the award, she was on a field trip with some students for the FCCLA State Conference when it was announced over the intercom. She said that when she got back that students and teachers were congratulating her and she thought that they were speaking about one of the students who qualified to go to the National Conference for FCCLA. Later on, she found out that she had won the award. Downing said that when she told the students that were on the field trip with her that she had won an award they were not surprised. She said a lot of her students thought it was about time that she had won an award and was recognized for her work.

To this day Downing is unsure of who nominated her for the award, “It might have even been one of my students that submitted me for the awards, I have no idea. My curiosity is driving me nuts… It kind of makes me want to cry sometimes, happy tears, because somebody out there recognizes what I do and what I put into my students and is wanting to make sure that I am recognized at the very least at the state level… It just makes me feel appreciated more than I have for a while.”

When asked how being nominated for awards and winning the NMACTE award impacts her Downing said, “[I feel] appreciation for the recognition, teachers don’t really get a lot of recognition. Being a teacher is one of the lowest paid professions out there, it’s one of the least appreciated professions out there. Especially career technical education, career technical education in and of itself is at danger of being removed from the high school level.” Downing said that for her she not only teaches her students culinary skills, but also necessary life skills for them before they graduate high school.

Community Service projects that Downing has been involved with include, food drives assisting the local pantry, assistance with the beautification of school grounds, creating an emergency donation station for Hurricane Harvey relief, volunteering at First Baptist Church to assist with their monthly food distribution, Creator of Substance Abuse Prevention Youth Coalition, developed the Adopt-a-Grandparent program, drug awareness rallies at the high school, middle school, and in the community, and assistance with city clean-up efforts.

Downing will be recognized at the 2024 Region Conference in Albuquerque on April 17 to April 19, with the chance to represent New Mexico nationally in San Antonio.

Downing has also been nominated for America’s Favorite Teacher by Reader’s Digest. The winner of the competition will appear in Reader’s Digest, win a trip to Hawaii, and take home $25,000. Downing said that with the $25,000 she would like to invest the money to grow the income needed to refurbish her classroom, get dental implants, and pay off debts. You can vote for Patricia Downing for America’s Favorite Teacher at https://americasfavteacher.o rg/2024/patricia-downing.