Consumers Win at Vitamin Cottage!

Rod, the manager of Pueblo's Vitamin Cottage, rallied for our cause and was able to get the corporate deciders to decide in favor of That's Natural!  Read here:http://blog.thatsnatural.info/today-consumer-wins-vitamin-cottage/

That's Natural Loses Significant Distributer due to Corporate Decision

This week, the loss of one of our primary distribution sites for the That's Natural! publication was confirmed by the corporate management of Vitamin Cottage. In spite of a valiant effort by the manager of the Pueblo branch, the store's parent company, Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets Inc. has chosen to include That's Natural! in their new policy to remove all publications from their stores. The reason for this change, as relayed to our supportive branch manager, is that the company wishes to avoid distribution requests from companies unrelated to Vitamin Cottage's products and services.

READ more at That's Natural's website: http://blog.thatsnatural.info/vitamin-cottage-removes-community-publications-stores/

Tell Vitamin Cottage to support local publications whose services and advertisements are in line with the company's mission!

Here is what I wrote:

I was extremely disappointed to find out that Vitamin Cottage will no longer allow local publications to be distributed at their stores. Although I understand that sifting through the various publications in order to decide which publications to allow for distribution, I thought that you would recognize publications whose missions are shared with the goal of providing health education. I am speaking, of course, of That's Natural Publication, which is distributed in Pueblo County. Many of us readers look for the publication at the only health food store in Pueblo while we shop. We often also read the publications provided within the store. We will now be forced to find other sources to pick up our copies of the magazine. Additionally, I will do my best not to support Vitamin Cottage as long as it clearly does not want to support local businesses. I agree that you may be inundated with requests to host stands for other newspapers, but rather than creating a sweeping decision, you would do better to allow for local managers to make decisions regarding their stores and the customers they serve.

Back to School!

I'm back in school -- I have been teaching at Pueblo Community College for a semester-and-a-half now, and I'm taking some classes through their employment benefits program. I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology I and ServSafe/Food Sanitation 101. These are great - and greatly time consuming! Between teaching and studying, I have 11 credits. I'm ALMOST full time :) I'm also still working with That's Natural and with the Colorado Farm to Fork Grant project.

I spend most of my days studying - mostly at Solar Roast Coffee, The Loft, and Wireworks. On occasion, I'll bend and go to the green national coffee chain, but I try to support the local businesses on a poor teacher/poorer student's income. And I think it would be more accurate to call it an out-go than an in-come. My cashflow is provided by Dr. Donna Hinders who has me come and file for her on occasion. She has also tutored me through my first Axial skeleton quiz (skull and vertebrae).

Today it was actually cold, so the fireplace is burning, and I'm sipping a lovely cup of Solaris coffee. I'm obviously taking a break from studying...

There is something inspiring about smelling ground coffee and brewing smells in a coffee shop. I think it opens up my blood vessels or something. :)

The other nice thing about studying at coffee shops is that you meet great friends here. I've struck up friendships with several of the staff and owners of the shops, which brings me to the random statement about having relationships with businesses. These relationships are WHY living is worth it! So thanks to my coffee shop friends who feed my addiction!

Junior League Kids Korner at Pueblo Health Expo

The Expo was great!

We had great attendance, and I think lots of it was due to the fact that That's Natural created special postcard invitations for the women of the Junior League to hand out to kids to augment the marketing that the Expo itself was doing.  There was so much participation for the Zumba and jump roping activities!  I think the extra marketing may have brought more families this time!

Arwen Christian, Tisha Casida, and a few other bleary-eyed chics joined me at 6:30 a.m. to set up for the Expo.  We didn't turn out to have much to do at the get-go, but that relaxation disappeared when the kids started to arrive!  

Arwen and I hosted the Nutrition Jeopardy game for the kids, and we handed out great prizes, including donations from Pamela' Products, a gluten free company, and others.  Arwen, Liz Marco, and I had stayed up on Tuesday working on the board and writing questions for it.  It was fun!  There are some great resources online, including the NAFWA, that provide nutrition material free of charge.  

I also helped out a Sodexho chef who was having microphone difficulties - anything to be on stage, right? :)

Other significant women: Anne Weirbach, Laura McGowan, Cara Housman, Lindsey Pacheco, and Janna Nolt.  They all dedicated chunks of time to help out at the Expo.  

  

Joshua took this goofy shot of me dressed like a carrot, compliments of That's Natural.  But my bravery was beat out by Susie Cauley, our Junior League chicken.  

I also took at stab at the Tree Pose, taught by Hilary Pacheco-Hall from the YMCA.  

Here's Arwen helping with the jump roping... I shied away and was hanging out with the chef at the other cooking demo! :)

We also donated some of our booth space to the Sangre de Cristo Art Center, and Stuffy and Joey helped children learn about the internal organs of the body.  He pulled out not-to-lifesize organs to educate the kids!  How fun!

That's Natural! Turns a New Page

That's Natural - a Pueblo-based news-magazine that I've been working with for over a year - has gone to FULL COLOR! Tisha, my dear friend and the publisher, has bitten the bullet and printed the whole news-mag in color on beautiful glossy paper! And the paper looks fantastic! What an eye-popping edition! Click on the title of this blog to check out her website!

That's Natural can be found all over Southeastern Colorado - and get ready to see more of us! We just won a USDA Grant for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education to create a curriculum series for elementary students to learn about sustainable, seasonal, locally-produced products and the nutritional and social benefits of supporting local farmers and ranchers! We're so excited! And boy do we have a lot of work cut out for us!

Health Expo

On Friday I participated in a Health Expo. It was at the Transportation Testing Center east of Pueblo. It took me about 45 minutes to get there! There was a pretty good turnout -- there were about 150 employees, and I probably met 50. They had incentives to go: prizes were being given out. Several asked good questions. Most of them "knew what was good to eat but didn't do it." Yah, that's a typical response about good nutrition.

Enjoy the pics.

Joining the Blogging World

Well, here goes nothing! Joshua and I have joined the blogging world -- mostly because now a few of our friends-far-flung have blogs, and we LOVE reading about their lives.

Oh, and I am working at a coffee house -- Perky Tea and Coffee (perkyteaandcoffee.bravehost.com) and have so much time on my hands among working there, running a slowly dying nutrition counseling business (thrivelifestyles.com), writing presentations, contributing articles to That's Natural (thatsnatural.biz) and other magazines or newspapers, teaching a nutrition class at PCC, teaching an Intro to Health Care Professions at the District 60 Health Academy, volunteering with the Junior League... Oh, and we're still married. Josh only works 40+ hours a week, commuting 60+ miles per day, counseling families and boys at the CBR Youth Connect. No worries at all.

Actually, truth be told, I like to write, I wanted to still have a website, and I want to cancel the one I'm paying for. Hmmm... So here it is. Our Blog.

Enjoy!