Feeding and Seeding our Future!

Thank you for reading this far - and for being a champion of strong local food systems. This campaign is about showing that there is broad local support for a local food coalition in our area - one that can help to coordinate efforts to increase local food production in the valley and be a resource to consumers, government and community decision-makers, all of us who care about a healthy and sustainable future.

A formal local food coalition can make sure we are collaborating powerfully across our 3 counties and many organizations to move our efforts forward together.  Please consider any size donation toward this effort - it's really about all of us owning it and investing in our ability to feed ourselves locally!


With your help we can build a website that will pull together all the resources that exist to help new farmers get on available land and begin new enterprises.
That website will also connect you to all the places that you can currently buy locally grown food, and all the restaurants that source local food, and how you can get help with your own projects and gardens.

The latest study that we completed shows a need for an online farmers market in our region - that would allow food growers of any size to post their offerings so that people in the area can buy more of what is grown locally. It's also a way for more people to consider growing food as an additional income, because it will be easier to sell it.

Restaurants, schools, hospitals can also access this online platform - and a local food coalition can apply for a grant and organize the many facets of this effort, and house the business under its nonprofit umbrella. With your help we can do this!

This is where we are going, and your participation in launching the formal structure of the Roaring Fork Food Policy Council (or whatever we choose to call our local food coalition to serve Aspen to Parachute) will make it happen. This grassroots effort will become an integrated support to county and municipal decision-making groups throughout our region, and to benefit all our efforts. Thank you for giving whatever you give to this endeavor whose time has come. If we raise more than the goal that will mean more hours will be invested in this effort:

*   forming an active board from our existing Advisory Circle and others
*   building a website that will be a clearinghouse and     forum for local food system resources and activity
*   driving pilot projects like supplying the 4 RE1 elementary schools with local apples this fall
*   coordinating grant writing and collaboration to create an online farmers' market for the region

And don't forget to add your local food enterprise or effort to the list of local food resources we are compiling for the website - just go here.