March 2010
When Visions Coincide
by Cindy Bellinger
With a shift in the economy and food security earnestly being talked about, communities are pulling together—especially in rural areas where old fields and pastures are being tilled again, where weathered corrals are being shored up, and sagging barns renovated. People used to know how to live off the land, and now a nationwide movement is taking place to bring back the old skills. And with so much of our land in rural status—43 million acres out of 77 million—New Mexico is definitely part of the growing trend.
One county actively combining the old ways with new technologies is Mora, a topographical blend of open plains, mountainous regions and swampy lowlands that spreads 1,900 square miles. Located in the northeastern part of the state, the county seat is Mora, a town of 2,100 residents; 15 other communities make up the rest of the county.
The person spearheading the movement is Anita LaRan, founder of Mujeres Unidas (Women United). The organization started as a way to empower local women but it’s growing. “The right people with the same vision keep showing up,” LaRan says, who is a member of Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative. Mujeres Unidas, an outgrowth of Helping Hands (a multi-purpose service organization), is a local grassroots initiative. What’s more, it could become a blueprint for other rural communities embarking on the growing trend of empowering women, youth and families.
How it All Began
Rooted to the area by five generations of the Lovato family, LaRan feels a deep connection to the land and people. “I grew up in Mora but left for 20 years and lived in California then Nevada. While growing up in Mora, I always heard people complain about the politics and the lack of progress. When I finally returned, I wanted to help change that. I wanted to see some positive changes.”
She returned in 1984 and took a part-time job with the county in the Community Development Office. She was to find funding to renovate homes for the elderly. She did, and the project upgraded bathrooms to accommodate wheelchairs, brought running water into many homes, and weatherized houses with better windows, insulation, doors and roofs.
“Then I started wondering what happened to funds in other counties that weren’t used. Could other counties use them? I went checking and landed $65,000 one time. Another time I found $200,000 from funds that had come back,” LaRan says. Then due to the county’s own dwindling funds, she was laid off but turned around and applied for the opening as director of Helping Hands. “That was in 1987, and I really felt empowered and found all kinds of foundation funds for projects.”
In 1990, LaRan received a grant for $3,000 from the New Mexico Department of Health for focus meetings to help identify community needs. Gilbert Valdez, then the Mora county manager, had a ‘land use’ project. LaRan suggested they ‘piggy-back’ projects to help facilitate the money. “We did a lot of asset-mapping and gathered a lot of information. A call came for communities to develop Ten-Year Strategic Plans in a Federal Initiative. A ten-year strategic plan was developed with the help of people I knew at Highlands University. Several communities were invited to participate. Also, we partnered with Rio Arriba and Taos counties,” says LaRan. In 1995, the project got a federal designation and was granted $2.95 million.
A Change of Direction
To LaRan this was seed money, a stipend to get things going. But others saw it as a windfall, and a political tug of war ensued. People scrambled for control of the project. LaRan was the president; and left totally frustrated. “A lack of vision in the planning process by those implementing the plan cost our communities millions of dollars. I felt traumatized by what happened,” LaRan says, but she didn’t abandon her vision. In the summer of 1994, LaRan was awarded the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Outstanding Women in New Mexico. In 1995, she participated in a delegation of 40 rural women at the World Conference of Women held in Beijing, China. That following summer she attended a month long Rural Development Leadership Institute at the University of California, Davis.
“In 1996, I founded and organized Mujeres Unidas as part of my commitment to rural leadership in my community. There were so many unmet needs for women that I wanted to empower them. I wondered how we could organize to sell products they made like jams, jellies, crafts, and weavings. We started with quarterly craft fairs. As Helping Hands gained funds from the Office of Community Services for job training and Welfare to Work, more facilities, including computers, were made available to local women.”
LaRan then became involved with Rural Development Leadership Network (RDLN) which enabled her to network with women’s groups around the world. In March of every year she represents Rural Women at the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. Working a coordinated fundraising strategy through RDLN, Mujeres Unidas garnered funds for outreach, training and micro-enterprise development. With this new source of seed money, LaRan started using the print facility at Highlands University using children’s art for postcards and calendars. As funds and interest dwindled, LaRan continued to move her vision forward with other projects, including the formation of Sangre de Cristo Livestock Growers. In turn, this mobilized small farms.
A Timely Meeting
In 2008, LaRan met MariAnna Lands. “Before we even shook hands, we gave each other a big hug,” recalls Lands with LaRan nodding in agreement. As they both say, the people you need to meet always come along at the right time. LaRan and Lands both saw the need for a citizens, grassroots organization that could form partnerships with local, state and federal organizations to work together to improve the well being of residents in Mora and surrounding communities.
LaRan came up with the name Collaborative Visions. Now the organization includes a local steering committee and an advisory council representing several local, regional and national organizations.
LaRan continues to evolve her organizational skills to build a team that is aligned with a positive vision for Mora. “It takes a co-coordinated team to raise and manage funds, especially to unify a community that has a history of division. Collaborative Visions is working on community partnerships to find solutions for developing a sustainable economy, preserving the environment, and providing youth and family activities for positive development.”
Collaborative Visions currently works with the Mora Independent School District to establish a Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Energy Demonstration Site.
The School Board donated four acres of irrigated land adjacent to the school. Currently six satellite farms associated with the sustainable agriculture project grow vegetables, raise beef, sheep, chicken, and bees, which sell at the local farmer’s market and are part of the school lunch program. A seed bank and green house development are also in the works.
A Satellite Farm
During a short January thaw, LaRan was eager to show off one of the satellite farms just a few miles outside the town of Mora in the smaller community of Cleveland. “When visions coincide, you can build a team. Then you enhance all people and that adds even more value,” LaRan says, pulling into La Sierra Farm, home to Lands and her husband, Nicholas Morrow; and daughter, Ania Roske and her husband Val, and their two boys, Teo and Keane, plus a menagerie of critters. Coincidentally, the Roske’s were featured as part of the February 2010 cover story, "The Joy of Raising Goats."
“We’ve been here seven years but this has been a dream of mine for 30 years,” says Lands, who initially moved to Taos in 1969. “I’ve wanted to have a sustainable place for my family for a long time and it’s finally happening.” When they began exploring their farm they found 15 graves, pot shards, pit houses, arrowheads, and determined the place had been inhabited for a very long time. The two families spent four years building a house for Ania, Val and their boys. Local trees were milled for lumber. They made their own adobe bricks, mudded their own floors. A woodworking building is also on the property, where they made their own cabinets and doors.
Today, La Sierra Farm consists of 30 acres, 10 of which are irrigated. Two old adobe buildings were already on the land and while doing renovations, they retained the historical integrity of the early buildings—especially the old school house. “We found old desks in it and now we’re using the building for youth art and creative projects,” says Lands. The farm has orchards, and a half-acre organic garden with a greenhouse. A small barn houses chickens, goats and rabbits. From drying, freezing and canning, the two families have food supplies for the family throughout the year. “The Mora Valley is teeming with agricultural and farming potential,” says Morrow, “and cooperatives can be formed to expand the variety of produce and provide healthy food for the surrounding communities.”
More Connections
Steeped in her community and connected to rural development foundations, LaRan is also active with the Rural Women’s Network, another offshoot of RDLN that is working on a national marketing strategy for a line of rural women’s products. Its focus is not only crafts but products made from locally grown food. She says after 27 years of fundraising, she’s finally seeing her work come to another level of manifestation.
Overall LaRan’s vision is to get things to a point where many different cooperatives interconnect within the county such as construction, automotive, farming, and weaving just to name a few. This way a cross-section of people not only can share machinery and tools, but have a network of people who can exchange experiences and know-how. This is how it used to be. This is the way things used to be done. It’s also how communities can be again.
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