ALAMOSA, CO — Sand Dunes Mushroom Cooperative, LCA, has launched a campaign to raise $20,000. The co-op will use the funds to purchase equipment and complete renovation of its warehouse.
After months of training on both the production side of growing specialty mushrooms and the business side of owning their own company, the eight founding worker-owners are ready for their next step: growing and selling.
The co-op aims to begin production of specialty mushrooms in April for sale at farmers markets and to restaurants from Santa Fe to Denver and from eastern Kansas to Aspen.
The co-op is in its pilot-project phase; plans call for expansion beginning in 2025. Its eight founders are all immigrants and most formerly worked at Colorado Mushroom Farm, once the largest private employer in the San Luis Valley. That farm closed and declared bankruptcy in 2022, leaving many of its 150 workers with unpaid wages and an uncertain future.
Sand Dunes Mushroom Co-op was founded to give workers control over their working conditions, a living wage, and job security. “We’re working hard to change not just our lives, but those of many families and the broader San Luis Valley community,” says Matias Francisco, a worker-member of the co-op.
As a worker-owned business, each member of Sand Dunes Mushroom Co-op owns one share, and each has an equal say in how the business is run.
To donate to the crowdfunding campaign, or to learn more about the co-op, please visit https://givebutter.com/p9ifhs. Contact: Matias Francisco, Worker-Owner, Sand Dunes Mushroom Co-op, Alamosa, CO 719-580-9686.