Pine River Shares is expanding into Ignacio and Arboles.
Pine River Shares is a program of the La Plata Family Centers Coalition through the Bayfield Family Center. It already provides family-centered programs in Bayfield and Forest Lakes and hosts the monthly community potluck in Bayfield. This month's potluck is from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Eagle Park. All are welcome. This October will be the fourth anniversary of the first community dinner.
Bayfield Family Center/Pine River Shares participants meet every Wednesday at the Family Center office in Bayfield. The Forest Lakes group meets on Thursdays at their activity center.
The first Ignacio meeting was on July 14 at the ELHI Community Center (the old elementary school) downtown. Participants discussed assets and barriers to a healthy, thriving Ignacio community and what Pine River Shares can do to promote that. They plan to participate in the San Ignacio parade on July 30 and host a community dinner in August. There will be a drive to collect school supplies to be shared at the dinner.
The first Pine River Shares meeting in Arboles was July 12 at the TARA Community Center. The goal is to serve the TARA communities of Tiffany, Allison, Rosa and Arboles. There are plans for a short series of summer family activities at the TARA Community Center. Work is starting on a heritage cookbook of healthy recipes that will be used as a community builder and fundraiser.
"Rather than this table (in Bayfield) getting bigger, we recognize that each of those communities have their own leaders," Family Center director Pam Wilhoite told the Times. "We have real differences in what makes each one a healthy, thriving community, so we are developing leaders there."
Each town is defining their own community assets and barriers.
Cathy Enns, who has been involved for about a year, said, "The belief is different from many groups that seek to serve, that those who face the challenges are the ones best suited to figure out solutions.
"It's bottom up. It's a whole different feel in my book."
She said Tandy Nossaman is the group leader for the TARA group. Barriers identified to a healthy, thriving community were isolation, the distance people must travel to resources, a feeling that people are losing their stories and their heritage, such as the things they pass to their kids. They are working on strategies to address those.
They are working to find out how many families with kids live in that area, working on the recipe book and ways to exchange fresh fruits and vegetables that they grow.
Enns said some of the Ignacio barriers are the same, and some are different. Addiction was the first thing that came up at the Ignacio meeting - methamphetamines, alcohol, opioids. Racism was identified as a threat and barrier, while diversity was identified as a strength. As with the TARA group, loss of story and history was identified as a barrier, she said.
Other Ignacio barriers were disparity of access to resources, sex without consent, girls having babies, and the Native experience of genocide.
Enns said Pine River Shares also is "looking at our own resources and how we can expand to areas that are ready. The need for funds." Many nonprofits are funded by grants and are dependent on grant cycles.
"We want to be independent of that to some extent, to be able to serve our communities consistently," she said. Money raised locally stays local.
Pine River Shares runs the kids' food backpacks in Bayfield during the school year, family food bags this summer, and classes on how to cook healthy meals at low cost.
Twenty new slow cookers were donated by Karen Zink from Durango and will be distributed by Pine River Shares to families that need them.
Free clothing is available most Fridays from the group's storage unit. It gets used a lot, Enns said. Pine River Shares is working to move the storage to just west of the Family Center office on Bayfield Center Drive, with the help of volunteer workers and materials. It will be open Mondays through Thursdays.
Another Pine River Shares volunteer, Katie Middleton, said volunteers are looking for storage space for out-of-season clothes and other items.
"We have huge amounts that people want to donate and no place to store it."
Parent Connection meetings in Forest Lakes are on Thursdays at the activity center. A kids' summer fun program wraps up on July 28. Fifteen families have been participating, 40 kids and 35 adults, Wilhoite said. This is the third summer of programs there, "and this is our biggest summer by far."
Pine River Shares has completed a valley resource mapping project including food producers, health care, craft and maker resources, and most recently, fiber producers and businesses.
The Los Pinos Fiber Alliance has now split off as its own entity. It will be another way to address barriers to healthy thriving communities, including lack of well-paying jobs.
For information on all these, call 884-4747.
