By Rose Chavez | Food System/Food Equity Coalition
The Vista Lake Park community garden project, a half-acre garden and park site located behind the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association’s administrative offices at 230 Port Ave. is an ongoing effort to support health and wellness in the Vista neighborhood.
The project is being led by Vista residents and surrounding neighbors through a community learning and leadership circle (CLLC) that meets weekly to oversee the development of the garden and park. The group is taking into consideration everything from the infrastructure to the programming that will activate the community garden and bring it to life not only through the growing of plants, but also the deep desire to grow community through all the activities tied to this effort.
Big kudos to the group for having arrived at a preliminary design this week for the garden. There are still multiple components of the garden/park and programming that need the insight and expertise from residents. The community is invited to reach out to Healthy Archuleta and review the design, share comments and connect to find ways to get involved in the CLLC moving forward.
The talent and skills the CLLC group exudes week after week is nothing short of hopeful and exciting for what is being dreamed of and envisioned for the Vista neighborhood and greater community. The group envisions for this project “a Vista Lake Park that is community led, generating solutions and building community while honoring culture, heritage, history and place to increase access to fresh foods and health/wellness using equity centered practices, learning, sharing and education.”
That dream includes the distribution of bags of fresh, locally grown foods for all being transformed into delicious and nourishing meals that bring the neighborhood and community around the table to share in the harvest of the earth, and the labors of love of this effort to nurture systems change in support of nutrition security and health equity in Archuleta County.
The Vista Lake Park CLLC members look forward to sharing more about the developments of the project at future community events coming up this spring, so please stay tuned.
For more information or if you have any questions, please contact us at fsfearchuleta@gmail.org or visit our website at: https://www.foodcoalition4archuleta.org/vista-lake-park.html. To donate to support the work of Healthy Archuleta doing business as the FSFE-Food Coalition, please visit our website: https://www.foodcoalition4archuleta.org/donate.html.
