Healthy Archuleta is partnering to host a food drive tomorrow, Saturday, January 21, from 11am to 3pm at the Pagosa Springs Walmart.
Community food-sharing opportunities allow us to gather together to support our community as a whole. Those who are able to are encouraged to share what they can to help the Food Distribution Center better support the Archuleta County Food Pantry Network with foods that our neighbors can use.
Join Healthy Archuleta in supporting the food security of our local community. A collection table will be set up at the store with a list of food items that our neighbors can use this winter and volunteers ready to collect donations. These items will help stock the shelves of the Food Distribution Center, which supports the food pantries in Archuleta County. Come participate in a community food-sharing opportunity.
Additionally, monetary donations made during the event will be matched up to $1,000.
If you would like to make donations to the food drive outside of the hours, there will be a collection box at the Bank of Colorado, 205 Country Center Drive, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147, which is open from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday.
For more information on the Healthy Archuleta Food Drive, visit https://www.foodcoalition4archuleta.org/food-drive.html.
Youth Photovoice Project
Here in Archuleta County, we as a community have many food-related problems and we need to take action. Healthy Archuleta is one of the food organizations in Pagosa Springs trying to do something about it. It partnered with GOAL High School and created a project to make youth aware of the issues and benefits in our community related to the food system.
Photovoice is a project that helped youth show their ideas and voice their opinions on the local food system. On December 8, 2022, GOAL High School hosted a small gallery walk for community members to see and hear the high schoolers voice a huge issue in our community and the world. Photovoice gave students the opportunity to take a class to learn about the local community-based food system and open their eyes to the ongoing issues.
Many of the members in our town had not noticed the issues surrounding healthy food supply until COVID hit. That is when we started to notice less access to quality food and limited supplies in our communities. The pandemic has opened many of our eyes to an ongoing issue that has been hap- pening for decades. Many people in the world and our town do not get to eat healthy food because of the high cost of healthy options in the market, making it difficult for them to have access to decent food.
Healthy Archuleta helps the people in our community have access to healthy food. The students at GOAL High School learned about this process and showed their concerns through photography. As a community, we can help prevent food waste within the food sys- tem by stepping up and making a change.
Photovoice is a way to help the new generations have an input in the matter and seek change for themselves. The education provided by Healthy Archuleta gives the students and the community members the opportunity to learn how to grow their own healthy fresh foods and where they can access them. With this information, youth can encourage their families to follow their example and make a change.