SAN LUIS VALLEY — Liza Marron, the executive director of the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition, will retire from that position on Dec. 31. Marron is also a Saguache County Commissioner and will continue in that role.

The foods coalition now includes the Valley Roots Food Hub in Mosca and the Rio Grande Farm Park in Alamosa and employs a workforce that is comprised of full- time, part-time and seasonal employees.

Marron, who is one of the founders, visionaries, and is now executive director of the coalition, was asked by this editor why is she retiring now and answered, "Part of it is my age, I'm kind of in the stepping back stage, and letting the younger generation step forward. I ran for Saguache County Commissioner and I care for my community and I won my election in January. I don't want to be a mile wide and an inch deep, I want to serve my community well as a county commissioner, so in letting go [of the coalition] the county commissioner position was a big impetus."

In 2005, Marron and others joined forces and created the SLV Prevention Coalition that would morph into the foods coalition. The prevention group worked on youth substance abuse, underage drinking, and other health issues.

"We didn't reinvent the wheel, we just worked with champions in the community that were already trying to do this work. For example, there was a twenty-year-long breastfeeding network that had been doing this work, Le Leche League. We just harnessed energy, we gave them resources, it was successful modeling,” said Marron.

"Part of our mission is we wanted to support family farms and ranches to help them be viable and not be gobbled up by big, commercial enterprises that are doing monocropping on big acres. We wanted the family farmer to be vital into the future and support the farmers and ranchers that make their products available locally. We do have some mid and big-scale farms that participate with us."

After receiving $1.2 million in 2007 from Live Well Colorado, a nonprofit to reduce obesity and promote healthy eating and active living in Colorado, the coalition became a force as a public health network advocating a variety of initiatives for better living.

"The momentum around the idea of here we are in the San Luis Valley in this rich agricultural region where the food we have access to is big box stores, convenience stores, and fast-food restaurants. People wanted a local food system, they wanted access to the amazing food that is grown here and there was no mechanism for it," said Marron reflecting on the early days.

"After an initial food security meeting to discuss these issues was a big success, a second community meeting was held and, that food meeting had so much energy, nobody wanted to leave the room, everyone was talking. We set another meeting and that is how the local foods coalition started, it was very organic, it wasn't planned, it was just very organic, it was from the will and the voice of the community and we responded to that."

For many years the coalition was very grassroots and met monthly in the hospice community room in Alamosa and in October 2012, formally became a 501(c)-3 non-profit organization.

In 2016, after a several-years-long process, the group was able to purchase the grounds of the former Polston Elementary School that is now the 38-acre Rio Grande Farm Park. The website of the park includes this, "we believe in the power of sustainable agriculture, cultural preservation, and community engagement."

Marron said the purchase was, "a miracle, there are so many miracles at the food coalition." The purchase was a collaborative effort and included the Trust for Public Land, the Mayan community, both the City and County of Alamosa, and community members.

In 2015 after collaborating with the University of Colorado in researching and interviewing direct market agricultural producers in the Valley on how to bring their product to local market, the results clearly showed a local food hub was a needed distribution tool. The research also showed that 77% of producers would participate. Based on the need for a distribution entity, the Valley Roots Foods Hub was created that year. In those early years, Marron "drove trucks and packed boxes." Today the food hub is under the direction of Nick Chambers and has a fleet of eight trucks.

The coalition is also involved in getting local agriculture to local schools.

"We are involved in farm to school. That is a way to get our local foods to the plates of the local community ... It is a crime that our local potatoes, beets, beef, things we are so good at growing here aren't on the plates of our kids and the food is sourced from far away," she said.

"Our thing at the local foods coalition is 'don't eat anything your grandma wouldn't recognize as food. Real food. So much of our lifestyle disease is because we are eating these high carb and high sugar, low nutrient foods, and people have to eat a lot of calories to try to satiate themselves on food that isn't feeding their spirit and their bodies. I can look at a plate of food and see Paul New and his integrity and his beautiful organic vegetables, I can see George Whitten and his pasture-raised beef, I can see Tom McCracken and his stone fruits. I can see the faces of our farmers and my food safety is their integrity. These people care deeply about the soil and the land. They see the consumers of their foods at the grocery store, at the schools, and restaurants. We look at each other in the eyes, and the integrity of that is so different from this anonymous long food chain that the people who are producing the food never see the consumer."

In 2021, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded Alamosa County the prestigious Culture of Health Prize for the work the Rio Grande Farm Park, and San Luis Valley Great Outdoors had completed in advancing health, opportunity, and equity.

Reflecting on her many accomplishments at the foods coalition Marron offered, "The greatest accomplishments are achieving our mission, which is fostering a local and equitable food system in the San Luis Valley and beyond. The formation and launching of the Valley Roots Food Hub, the saving of the land, and creating a farm incubator and education center at the [Rio Grande] Farm Park are what I am most proud of. They contribute to a viable local food system here. Our farm-to-school program is also something I'm proud of. My capstone project that Jay Sanders is leading and taking over is the six-county community food and agricultural assessment and strategic plan.

"We have created the infrastructure to get the food from the farm gate to the farm plate. It is a beautiful thing,” said Marron.