VALLEY – Community Resource Center (CRC) is excited to announce the newest addition to its rural community development and capacity building programming with the Rural Experience. This is a new opportunity for statewide leaders to learn from and engage with rural communities and for those communities to have a structured platform to share sustainable local solutions.

This year’s Rural Experience will engage community members most affected by the opioid and addiction crisis in the San Luis Valley and Southern Colorado more broadly. The issue was selected as particularly relevant and timely with the current growing national concern for rural community health.

The group hopes to start a dialogue that expands beyond the role of health care providers in addressing substance use and abuse. Participants will explore how the opioid crisis is a result of, and contributor to, complex community needs, resource scarcity, and deeply held culture. To that end CRC is excited to have presenters from local law enforcement and civic and community leadership in conjunction with healthcare professionals.

Join CRC in Alamosa and San Luis on November 2-3 for this immersive, engaging program and gain a better understanding of the extended impact of a deeply rooted and complex issue. The convening will include perspectives from both experts in the field and those with lived experiences. Participants will engage in a discussion about the extensive impact the opioid epidemic has had while also lifting up locally-driven solutions for rural Colorado.

Local community members, service providers, and civic leaders are invited to participate in this conversation with statewide resource providers, including foundation executives. CRC welcomes diverse perspectives and encourage participation of those outside the healthcare arena.

Learn more and register here: www.crcamerica.org/rural-experience/

Community Resource Center (CRC) creates opportunities, tools and strategies to develop nonprofits and community groups to strengthen Colorado. It is a mission driven nonprofit that offers a continuum of services throughout the state of Colorado.