
Liza Marron
San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition
Representing: Expertise in rural community and regional development, or community and economic development programs
Liza is the founding director of the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition in rural southern Colorado. The San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition works to foster an equitable local food system that restores the health of the people, community, economy and ecosystem. She has been a community organizer with a focus on social justice, wellness and prevention for many years.
Marron served as the Alamosa coordinator of LiveWell Colorado’s healthy eating active living initiative from 2007 to 2013 seated at Valley Wide Health Systems, Inc. She worked with local partners to sustain the LiveWell Colorado investment in the San Luis Valley and to maintain healthy eating active living momentum through the San Luis Valley Local Foods Coalition.
Ms. Marron has a Master’s Degree in Community Counseling and a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish. Her skill set includes coalition building, grant writing, governance, visioning and strategic planning, non-profit management, finance, and economic development.
The major projects of the Local Foods Coalition are the Valley Roots Food Hub aggregation and distribution enterprise complete with commercial kitchen for value-added production – now a member of Tap Root Cooperative seeking to capture the front range market for rural producers; the Rio Grande Farm Park an agricultural park with a farmer incubator whose farmers have formed the Rio Grande Farm Park Farmers Cooperative, Cooking Matters teaching families to cook healthy on a budget and the San Luis Valley Farm to School Task Force.
Marron lives in Saguache Colorado with her son, their horses, dogs, cat and chickens, her garden and her bicycle.