Pine River Shares (PRS) works to ensure healthy, thriving communities in the Pine River Valley. From the headwaters of the Vallecito and Los Pinos to the banks of Navajo, from the Piedra to the Florida, and the 275 square mile valley that lies in between, our communities are united by a river.
Over the past decade, PRS has brought together the people in the Pine River Valley to share knowledge, skills and resources to help our communities thrive, neighbor to neighbor, hand in hand. Remarkable positive change has occurred. Our lives have been transformed. Facing significant funding cuts that amounted to 30% of our overall 2025 budget, Pine River Shares experienced the most challenging year to date. In response, we worked with communities to redesign our workplans and make difficult program cuts or modifications. These changes enabled us to maximize our assets to provide the greatest good for the most people in challenging economic times. We are especially proud of all we accomplished in 2025!
Recognizing the economic challenges PRS faces are similarly faced by everyone living in the Valley, we strengthened our food support and mutual aid programs, while building alternative economic drivers for Pine River Shares.
Field to Fork Project (F2F) With the installation of Grow Domes in Allison and Vallecito, we completed the allocation of ARPA funds given to PRS by our County Commissioners to make legacy investments in community food production and food processing capacities. We celebrate our shared efforts to improve access to affordable healthy food for all residents and rebuild our food system which now includes three community owned and managed food production sites located in the north (Vallecito), south (Allison) and mid valley (Bayfield); and a 10-acre Community Food Farm, owned and managed by PRS.
PRS Food Support Programs are a critical lifeline to approximately 20% of PRV residents annually who struggle to make ends meet amidst rising costs of living and stagnant incomes. Over the last year, our programs included backpack projects for Ignacio and Bayfield schools, monthly Food Shares, USDA
Commodities distributions, and a new project that supplied 18 weeks of fresh Community Farm produce to seniors. All together these programs provided emergency food support to 31,000 residents despite dramatic funding cuts to our food programs that totaled over $35,000.
Resource Sharing and Mutual Aid are important sources of economic support when household budgets are tight. More than 600 people visit our Freecycle thrift shop for free gently used clothing and house wares each year. We distributed over $25,000 in emergency financial assistance to help residents with past due energy and utilities bills, and gas cards to get to work or medical appointments. Most recently, we worked with the Red Cross to house Vallecito flood evacuees.
New economic drivers for PRS are necessary for small non-profits to survive in times of dramatic economic change. When traditional sources of non-profit funding are no longer viable or sufficient to meet the needs of a growing number of vulnerable neighbors, we must be creative, collaborate, and identify new ways of funding our work. The Community Food Farm purchased last year, and the recent development of the Pine River Community Resource Center to host providers of services not currently available in the Valley, are examples of new social enterprises designed to create modest profits that go back to the non-profit to fund the delivery of PRS’ critical services. We believe these innovative local initiatives will ensure foundational support for services that all thriving communities require.
Pine River Shares was founded on the belief that “When everyone shares no one goes without,” a belief that continues to guide our work. We believe that everyone has something to share. We count on your FOOD drives to help feed neighbors in need. We count on our FRIENDS to help power our all-volunteer-run projects. And we count on FUNDS from local contributions to ensure that the work of creating healthy Pine River Valley communities continues.
Working together, everyone thrives. It’s a great time to get involved!
We are once again blessed to have a generous local benefactor matching financial contributions up to $40,000 until Dec. 31!