Our team at Healthy Archuleta wishes everyone a healthy and happy new year.
At Healthy Archuleta, we have lots of exciting new projects to look forward to this year. Last summer, we were awarded four new grants that we will be implementing in 2025. These grants focus on expanding equitable food access and behavioral/mental health services.
Related to the local food system, we will begin planning for a food hub in Archuleta County. The goal of this food hub is to expand fresh and healthy food access to the underserved populations in Archuleta County by strengthening our local food supply chain. The long-term vision for this food hub is for it to become self-sustaining and foster local food sovereignty that improves access to local foods. We will start the work for the food hub this year by bringing a group of individuals together to establish a Food Hub Community Learning and Leadership Circle to start the planning process.
In 2025, we will also be focusing on efforts to make behavioral and mental health services more accessible to our monolingual Spanish-speaking community. This effort looks to expand access to Spanish- speaking mental health providers through telehealth and in-person appointments via a comprehensive referral system.
As part of this effort, we will also be working with community health workers/navigators/advocates to expand access to resources and training opportunities to increase our bilingual mental health workforce and provide cultural competency training to primary care, and behavioral and mental health care providers.
Our hope is that these efforts will help our community be more equitable and healthier, but we can’t do this alone. If you are interested in learning more about any of these projects, you can email us at fsfearchuleta@ gmail.com.
Check out our website, foodcoalition4archuleta.org for events and happenings in 2025.
We hope everyone has a happy and healthy new year and that you will consider getting involved in our work.