Dear Friends and Partners of Healthy Archuleta,
As another year draws to a close, we are reaching out to you, our valued community, to support the vital work of Healthy Archuleta. Your generosity enables us to continue making a real difference in the lives of our neighbors in Archuleta County.
The cost of providing these essential programs is significant, and we rely on the support of compassionate individuals like you. By donating to our year-end appeal, you will directly contribute to:
Advancing Health and Nutrition for All: From cooking classes for youth to ensuring access to healthy food at local pantries, we're working to create a healthier community for everyone.
Over the past 12 months, to support our local economy and neighbors who rely on food pantries to meet their nutrition needs, we purchased and donated over 15,000 pounds of locally-raised beef to the 7 Archuleta County food pantries.
Youth Engagement and Empowerment: We invest in our youth by providing education and resources around food, nutrition, and sustainability, empowering them to build a brighter future.
This year, six youth interns actively engaged in our organization's work, while our team dedicated 250 hours to providing direct educational support to high school students.
Building Community: By supporting community gardens, backyard growing, and hosting food summits and garden education events, our collaborative food production initiatives foster a sense of connection and shared responsibility within the community.
This year around 600 community members were engaged through these food production efforts.
The Annual Health Fair & Expo: Our second annual Archuleta Health Fair & Expo, in partnership with public and private agencies, furthered our commitment to increasing access to primary and preventative healthcare screening, education, and vital community resources.
This year we saw an increase of more than 50% in individuals who received lab services and more than 80% increase in registration for the health fair.
Your gift, no matter the size, will have a lasting impact. Together, we can create a community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Please join us in supporting these crucial efforts.
With heartfelt thanks,
The Healthy Archuleta Board Members
Lisa Scott, Valarie Groves, Josh Sanchez, Kim Barnes, and Glory Lark
At Healthy Archuleta, our vision is a community where everyone contributes to and benefits from an equitable, resilient, and sustainable food and healthcare system. Our mission is to drive strategic systems change by engaging community members to advance nutrition security, health equity, and greater social belonging.
In Archuleta County, 8.2% of families and 11.6% of residents fell below the poverty line in 2017. During that time, an informal group of community members representing different agencies came together to understand the food system with the aim of advancing food equity in our community. For the next two years, this group (Food System|Food Equity Coalition) met and learned about each other’s work as it relates to the residents of Archuleta County. In 2019, through a planning grant from the Colorado Health Foundation (CHF), the Food System|Food Equity Coalition (Coalition), as a project of a fiscal agent (Community United Method Church), conducted a participatory-based community food assessment, developed an implementation plan, and strengthened its Coalition with community member involvement beyond partner agencies. In 2020 with the stay-at-home order resulting from the Pandemic, the Coalition was asked by the Archuleta County Director of the Department of Human Services to work on emergency food work since it had established connections in the community. One of the first activities of the Coalition was to bring the food pantries in the county together to form a network and to work on access to food. It also brought the growers together remotely to encourage and support them to grow food for the food pantry clients. From the Fall of 2019 to the Fall of 2021, the Coalition engaged numerous community members to support food access during the pandemic while working on the implementation plan that was submitted to CHF. The Coalition applied for several grants to support the community with food access and engaged community members as contractors and volunteers to support the work. Activities conducted during this time included a participatory budgeting project that supported community member’s ideas, garden education, cooking demos at food pantries, a pilot mobile food pantry effort, restaurant vouchers for food for community members, procurement and distribution of food through the food pantries and partner organizations, among others.
On September 10, 2021, Healthy Archuleta, Inc. dba: FSFE - Food Coalition was established as a non-profit corporation in the State of Colorado with the mission of being dedicated to advancing food production, health and community wellness through food/nutrition resource assistance, educational programs, advocacy, systems work, and promoting community-driven solutions that lead to a healthier Archuleta. Since then, it has continued to advance its work in line with the outcomes it achieves and in concert with its mission.
Today, Healthy Archuleta is focused on three primary areas of action and learning, which include Health Equity, Nutrition Security, and Community Cohesion. Healthy Archuleta recognizes that at the heart of its work is community engagement and capacity building related to the local food and health system. Toward this end, the current efforts are focused on the following ten areas: 1) Nutrition Security|Health Equity Assessment, 2) Increasing access & utilization of primary & preventive health care, 3) Increasing local food production/supply, 4) Increasing food access & security, 5) Advancing learning about the food system & health promotion/wellness, 6) Language equity, 7) Volunteer engagement, 8) Youth engagement, 9) Community building, and 10) Supporting and strengthening HA’s operation toward sustainability.
At Healthy Archuleta, we strongly believe that access to nutritious food and quality healthcare are fundamental rights that should be available to everyone.
Organization name
Healthy Archuleta Inc
2021
Tax id (EIN)
87-2588549
Category
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition, Health Care, Community Improvement & Capacity Building
Organization Size
Medium Organization
Address
434 LEWIS STREETArchuleta County, CO, US