This winter, the Alliance began a process of reorganizing and restructuring. Non-profit organizations must continuously evolve to meet changing community needs. This is especially true for us, as an organization devoted to finding new approaches to community prosperity in a difficult economy.

In just a decade, the Alliance made “Buy Local” a household phrase in Santa Fe. This October, we won the Santa Fe Community Foundation’s Pinon Visionary Award. It’s a nearly universal feeling that the work we have started has been significant to the community and should continue.

With the help and generosity of many local partners, we have begun to resolve the financial and structural issues that led us to reduce operations for the winter.

We are planning a series of open meetings this spring to re-envision the role of the Alliance in Santa Fe’s economy. I’m eager to get this part of the process started and to enlist your help in shaping the future of the Alliance. Among all of the new ideas that will come up, I’m sure that the essentials will stay the same — you, our members, Santa Fe’s independent business owners, are the heart of this organization, and our message will always be “Buy Local”.

I want to acknowledge Vicki Pozzebon’s significant contributions to the Alliance and the Santa Fe community during her six-year tenure as our Executive Director. Her energy and enthusiasm will certainly continue to be an asset to Santa Fe, the State, and the local economy movement.

Please be patient with us as we put together a new foundation for the Alliance. We need your wisdom, ideas and support. I will send out periodic updates, and I encourage you to contact me if you are able to help us in any way.

Roy Wroth
President

“It requires, however, a vision of a New Economy that is truly democratic, based on sound market principles, rooted in community values, and accountable to community interests…This vision is being articulated and popularized by alliances such as the New Economy Working Group and the New Economy Network and implemented by groups such as the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, the American Independent Business Alliance, Transition Towns, local food movements, and many others. The vision is grounded not in some utopian ideology or theory, but rather on the work and experience of millions of people are already engaged in living the New Economy into being through grassroots actions that flow from their deepest values and aspirations.”

As a member and regional hub leader for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and a member of the American Independent Business Alliance, as well as operating a ground-breaking food and fuels program and working and partnering with local community builders, we know this to be true. No matter who is, or is not, in office, we will continue to build a local living economy in Santa Fe.

The night before we hosted our monthly Green Drinks at the Flying Star Cafe with Kate Manchester of Edible Santa Fe as the guest speaker. The crowd had as much fun talking about the importance and power of buying locally as they did sampling the beautiful, delicious, free dessert buffet.

Cook with the Chef has been so much fun this year. Here is Patrick Lambert of the Cowgirl BBQ doing his thing with his ever-present smile, and the scene that evening. Be sure to come out to Green Drinks at the Cowgirl on October 27th!

Look for the Cook with the Chef season wrap up with lots of pictures later this month!

Next Thursday, October 7th is our last Cook with the Chef of the 2010 season. You won’t want to miss Megan Tucker of Amavi Restaurant. Besides being an incredibly talented chef, she is the nicest person and a huge supporter of our Farm to Restaurant Project. Here she is unpacking a delivery of locally grown produce from our Pilot Distribution Program.

FYI, tune in at 11:00am to KTRC 1260am this Sunday the 3rd to hear her talk about the local chef community in Santa Fe on Local First Radio with Vicki Pozzebon.

“Just as American chefs became superstars over the past three decades, so have the farmers, fishers, foragers, ranchers, and artisans become heroes of local food movements and beyond.” Read the article.

This was a fun and inspiring Green Drinks. The weather was perfect, the food and drinks were delicious, and Regina gave an informative and engaging talk about recycling in Santa Fe. This crowd gets excited about recycling! Here is Tejinder, our Farm to Restaurant Logistics Operator, our fabulous intern Rachel Miller, and Beverly Post our Development Director. Be sure to join us next month at Flying Star on September 29th.

At this week’s Cook with the Chef we learned how to make fresh mozzarella from Roland of Joe’s Restaurant. Who knew it was so easy! He then made a delicious salad from Farmer’s Market vegetables and his amazing mozzarella. The crowd loved it! If you haven’t been to a Cook with the Chef yet, you’re missing out. Join us every Thursday at 5:30 pm at the Farmer’s Market in the Railyard.

Read the article here: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2010/sb20100825_757378.htm

Do you suspect that the recycling that you so painstakingly separate and put at your curb is just thrown in the landfill? You see all that mixed material being hauled off and you wonder, how could that really be recycled? Well, here is some good news . . . in the City Different, your recycling is recycled. It is taken to Santa Fe’s own recycling facility called the Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station (BuRRT) off of 599 and Buckman Road. This facility diverted more than 13,000 tons of cardboard, aluminum, plastic, glass, paper, phone books, brush, electronics, tires and fluorescent bulbs from the landfill last year.

It ends up that collecting recycling mixed at the curb is the way to go. More people participate this way because it is easy. At the BuRRT, mechanical means and human sorters are used to separate the cardboard, paper, plastics, aluminum and tim. Once sorted, material is made into giant bales and sold to manufacturers who make new products from the old materials. Some of this remanufacturing happens in factories close to Santa Fe. Old newsprint goes to a factory near Flagstaff, Arizona which sends newsprint to The New Mexican putting the used paper back in our living room in as little as 30 days. Old cardboard from BuRRT goes to a factory near Grants, New Mexico that makes new boxes out of 100% recycled cardboard.

Glass goes to the BuRRT for recycling too. That recycling is a little more challenging. Glass is ground into two products: one that is like sand and another with larger pieces. The BuRRT uses these materials for landscaping, but unfortunately not too many people want to landscape with it. Manufacturers often need pure material to make things like crystal clear glass so they buy real sand instead of the mixed color recycled glass. The crushed glass can be used instead of dirt in some projects, but dirt is inexpensive and available so the glass gets left behind again. Glass can be used in road base, but strangely enough, we might not have enough glass to make a mile of road. City of Albuquerque and Earthstone are setting up a plant to make a product like vermiculite out of recycled glass. Hopefully that product will be well-liked and lots of glass can be recycled at that plant.

So, your recycling is not tossed and recycling in Santa Fe is creating jobs and saving our land. Santa Fe could and should recycle a lot more though, so go ahead, recycle, it WILL make a difference.

(For more information about solid waste in Santa Fe, come out to Green Drinks on August 25th at La Choza to hear Regina Wheeler “Talk Trash.”)