Healthy Futures AmeriCorps places service members across rural Colorado to support programs working for an equitable and healthy future for all. This includes focuses on nutrition and environmental education, community and school gardens, regenerative agriculture practices & increased access to healthy food.


WHAT IS AMERICORPS?

Join us for anywhere from one season to up to two years of mentored service, where you’ll gain hands-on experience building and sustaining healthy communities.


AMERICORPS SERVICE POSITIONS

Positions are open until filled

Community Outreach

Community Outreach includes volunteer coordinating, fundraising and development, marketing, and other outreach positions. This position is for a relationship-cultivator extraordinaire who will focus on bringing in new prospects and cultivating relationships that connect people to opportunities for meaningful and continual involvement, whether as recipients of services, advocates for the cause, or as contributors who help activate community-driven solutions.

  • GV-HEAT: Clean Energy and Housing Community Liaison - Gunnison, CO
    Start Date: May 2024 | Term Length: 12 months, 1700 hrs.
    Engage the community through creative outreach and partnerships. Empower clients with personalized support and tangible energy savings. Expand contractor networks and pioneer healthcare-focused initiatives.

FARM TO SCHOOL Environmental EDUCATORS

Work with Farm to School staff and volunteers to connect youth to the earth, to their food, and to the community as part of our district-wide Farm to School program, bridging gaps that enable partner organizations to be more efficient and effective at providing nutrition, health, and garden-based environmental education to rural youth. You’ll teach hands-on lessons in environmental science, food & nutrition, and outdoor experience summer camps.

  • Guidestone Colorado: Ranch & Homestead Experiential Educator - Salida, CO
    Start date: May 2024  |  Term length: 5 months, 900 hours
    Run education programs at the Hutchinson Homestead & Learning Center and is a good fit for an individual who is passionate about working with youth, supporting local agriculture, ranching, agricultural history, traditional arts and experiential education, and building connections in the community.

  • Rio Grande Farm Park (SLVLFC): Education Assistant - Alamosa, CO
    Start date: May 2024  |  Term length: 6 months, 900 hours
    Help implement educational programming in 2024 for the Rising Stewards program, programs for high school youth, and community members. Participate in creating a long-term vision and curriculum around RGFP educational programming and support the ecosystem of environmental education in the San Luis Valley.

  • Mountain Roots: Summer Outdoor Educator - Gunnison, CO
    Start date: May 2024  |  Term length: 12 months, 1700 hours
    Teach hands-on lessons in environmental science, food & nutrition, outdoor skills, cooking, and more during a 10-week outdoor experience summer camp program for K-12 youth. This position also serves in after school programming with Gunnison and Crested Butte Schools.

  • Mountain Roots: Environmental Educator - Gunnison, CO
    Start date: May 2024  |  Term length: 3 months, 450 hours
    Teach hands-on lessons in environmental science, food & nutrition, outdoor skills, cooking, and more during a 10-week outdoor experience summer camp program for K-12 youth. Days are spent outdoors exploring the natural world.

food security COORDINATOR

The position will coordinate collaborative and equitable food access programs, like food rescue, cooking classes, community gardens, Spanish language food assistance distributions, and senior outreach in a rural Colorado mountain community.

  • Mountain Roots: Food Security Coordinator - Gunnison, CO
    Start date: May 2024  |  Term length: 12 months, 1700 hours
    Coordinate collaborative and equitable food access programs such as, food rescue, cooking classes, community gardens, Spanish language food assistance distributions, and senior outreach in a rural Colorado mountain community.

Community Farm and Garden production

Practice the basics of small-scale organic regenerative production farming in the Colorado mountains. Growing spaces (varies based on the sites) include 2-acre farms, high tunnels and hoop houses, perennial food crops, orchards, community gardens, climate-battery greenhouses, and four hydroponic container farms.

  • No available positions at this time

Land Access and Succession

Creates innovative solutions to the challenges of agricultural land access and land succession while providing professional educational and resource support to ranchers, farmers, landowners & land seekers in order to secure agriculture’s future on the land.

  • No available positions at this time

We are committed to creating an equitable work environment and we strongly encourage you to apply if you are part of the BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA communities, are a person with a disability, a veteran, or are of diverse nationality or religion. We expressly prohibit any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.


Member Terms & Benefits for Service

You don’t pay tuition or fees for the world of knowledge and experience you’re going to gain during your year of service. But we know you need to live, and to have space for outside-of-work experiences that are fun and fulfilling as well. While you’re in service, you’ll get a living allowance that covers your room and board, and after your service, you’ll get a cash education award that can be applied to pay back your federal student loans, to pay for grad school or other continuing education, including trip-based programs like NOLS and Outward Bound. Read more on the education award here.

Other benefits include:

  • attendance at 1-2 regional conferences, like the Western Colorado Soil, Food and Farm Forum, Regenerate, or Agrisummit.

  • three, 2-day expense-paid trips, to locations around the region to broaden your food systems experiencerelocation reimbursement (mileage)

  • $100 allowance toward professional development / training of your choice

  • some sites offer housing stipends to further offset the cost of housing

  • some sites offer ski passes, rec center passes, gas cards, and other discounts to local community services

  • certifications in first aid and food handler, some sites offer more

  • student loans go into forbearance and the interest is paid

  • child care and health care coverage for members serving Full Term (1700 hours)


What’s in it for You?

  • Placement in top Colorado organizations. Healthy Futures AmeriCorps Program places our members in top food systems organizations in Central and Western Colorado to implement and expand community services.

  • Leadership, mentored by leading industry professionals. Our positions provide unparalleled opportunity for a higher level of responsibility and agency than typical entry-level positions, with the support of a mentor who is invested in your success.

  • Change the world. Localizing food systems is arguably the best solution we have to combatting so many of our global problems. We need more motivated leaders to challenge the status quo and then mobilize others to do so.

  • Make a lasting difference in the lives of others. While you’re gaining experience through a meaningful service, the real-world solutions you create are transforming rural Colorado communities, helping to achieve equity and social justice.

  • Professional development and personal growth. Build lasting relationships, expand your professional network in education, agriculture, food security, and conservation, and provide excellent professional development experience, and add to a compelling resume for your career.

  • Transformative life experience. Looking back, our members all say that their service terms were pivotal periods of their lives that prepared them for or launched them into the next chapter of their life.

 

 
co_gov_lt_serveco_rgb.png
 

This material is based upon work supported by the National Agency of AmeriCorps under
Grant No. 21AFDCO0010007. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the official position of or a position that is endorsed by Serve CO.