A Brief History of New Roots CO

New Roots CO first started as an organization with the Eagle County Public Health’s, Healthy Communities Coalition. In 2012, this coalition initiated the Eagle County Food Policy Council as a work-group to address healthy food access in our area. The Eagle County Food Policy Council merged with Eagle County Slow Food and created the umbrella name of Mountain Harvest. During that time, the Vail Valley Salvation Army (VVSA) agreed to house Mountain Harvest in alignment with their Avon Community Garden project and all parties collaborated to build the Avon Greenhouse and create a variety of programming, such as the Growing Gardeners early childhood program. The VVSA continues to operate the garden, greenhouse, and Growing Gardeners to this day.  With the completion of the greenhouse and transition of key leaders, Mountain Harvest was renamed Bare Roots in 2017.

While many passionate individuals have been a part of the various iterations of New Roots CO over the years, in July of 2018 the Bare Roots committee (consisting of: Nicole Abrams, Shawna Wood, Laura Hartman, Evan Ellis, and Adam Fenton) decided to establish an independent nonprofit with a renewed focus on systems change encompassing the entire county to ensure equitable access to healthy, local foods. Thus, we are New Roots CO, building a resilient Eagle River Valley community, fueled by food.