Month: June 2025

Mackenzie Stafford

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — How close is a grocery store to you? It’s a question that may not typically cross your mind, but some southeastern Colorado Springs residents say it’s on their minds all too often. 

They’re in what the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) considers a food desert. An area where it’s difficult to access a grocery store or fresh, healthy foods, so some neighbors are taking it into their own hands.

Today, the Southeast Food Coalition held its second-ever farmers market near Stompin’ Groundz coffee shop along Jetwing Dr. The event brought farm-fresh food to the community, allowing neighbors to stop in and get something healthy with ease. 

“We started the food coalition to create equitable food systems in Southeast Colorado Springs because we don’t have a lot of healthy food options. And we do want our community to live longer and healthier. And by providing access to healthy food options, we can do that,” explained Southeast Food Coalition Director Yevgeniya Tsyganok.

Yevgeniya Tsyganok tells KRDO13 that she was fed up with the barriers her community was facing.

“Our community has asked for one for a long time, but nobody’s brought one here,” said Tsyganok, speaking about a farmers market.

So Tsyganok and others took it into their own hands, creating the Southeast Food Coalition.

“I live, I work, and I raise a child in this community, so I understand the barriers. We shouldn’t have to go outside of our community to get access to healthy food options and to resources and tools that will help us thrive and live longer and healthier lives,” explained Tsyganok.

The nonprofit held a pilot farmers market in October, which was a huge success. After seeing the positive community response, Tsyganok says they had to keep it going.

“We had people crossing coming across the street, and they’re like, oh, we could access a farmer’s market right here. And I just cried because I’m like, they’ve been deprived of that, and they deserve access to healthy food options,” recounted Tsyganok.

So now they’re back, bringing local farmers, vendors, and fresh produce with them. The Southeast Food Coalition plans to hold the farmers market every other Sunday through the end of September.

Tsyganok says the coalition also holds community gardening events and has a free community fridge.

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Mackenzie Stafford

LAS ANIMAS COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) – The Apogaea festival was set to be held June 4-8, but it was cut short due to alleged non-consensual drugging involving fentanyl. On Sunday, the Apogaea Board of Directors released a statement to clarify the weekend’s events.

The festival is known as a Colorado Burning Man regional event held near Trinidad, just north of New Mexico. What was expected to be a weekend full of art and music was quickly shut down.

On Thursday afternoon, event organizers say two festival goers came to a department tent, saying they had been gifted a substance that they tested positive for fentanyl. They say a volunteer notified the Apogaea Incident Command System (ICS), which in turn alerted the County emergency coordinator. Apogaea says they never had custody of the substance and did not test it.

The next morning, on Friday, organizers say a participant noticed an undissolved gelcap in their clear water bottle. This tested positive for fentanyl via two strip tests. Organizers say that since the bottle had been on volunteer premises, there was immediate concern that somebody might be targeting the volunteers. Apogaea says they tested the gelcap again with multiple reagent tests, which resulted in confirming the presence of multiple substances.

Field test methodologies are not 100% accurate, and they can result in false positives, shared the Apogaea board. With the presence of the gelcap reagent tests and the multiple positive fentanyl results, Apogaea says their teams had a high confidence that this was a situation of non-consensual drugging.

Organizers say that as a precaution, community water in the nearby Center Camp Café and Ranger Station was dumped. The board says they updated the County and worked with the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office (LACSO) to come to the decision to close the event.

The Sheriff’s Office tells KRDO13 it was aware of the incident, however, it was not contacted by anyone to initiate a formal investigation of the alleged incident, nor have any suspects been identified.

KRDO13 spoke with Joe Richards, the Las Animas County Emergency Manager, who was in contact with the event organizers. Richards says the incident commander contacted him initially on Thursday to make him aware that two people at the festival had tested for and found fentanyl in a substance someone had given to them.

He says that after they had another instance with someone finding a capsule in their water the next day, which tested positive for fentanyl, that’s when they became more concerned and contacted him.

Richards tells KRDO13 the incident commander said they’d like to shut the event down to prevent any further risks, and he said it’s up to you, but I support it wholeheartedly.

So he says, as a group, they came to the conclusion to shut down the event, and although some are upset, he’s grateful there were no serious injuries. Richards says the incident commanders were proactive and took the right steps to handle the incident.

Richards says with 1,400-1,500 people at the event, the possibility of someone non-consensually drugging others was highly concerning, especially with how deadly fentanyl is. He says there were multiple EMTs at the festival, along with a local fire department on scene for nearly the entire event.

Apogaea says that to their knowledge, no one was dosed or harmed physically at the event, and there were zero medical transports from the site during the event.

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