We launched into 2020 with a clear strategic plan and vision for what this year would entail. Yet, just a month or so into that plan, the world changed around us as we entered into a global pandemic. As the Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chödrön writes, “sometimes when things fall apart, well, that's the big opportunity to change.” And that has been our mantra for this year.
This year has challenged us to grow in many new ways, to pivot, to unlearn and to learn, to problem solve differently, and to be nimble. We have watched our team come together in new (and virtual) ways to support each other both in work and in our personal lives. Slack has been a new powerful tool for how we virtually communicate with our team, manage our projects from different home offices, execute quick strategies, share articles, and swap jokes and words of encouragement.
Throughout this year we have pushed ourselves to explore new ways of working, and to work with new stakeholders. We are challenging ourselves to think and be more intentional about travel in our future. We love working at a national level and on landscapes across the country, yet realize that we do not need to get on a plane at the pace that we have traveled in the past.
Throughout 2020, our team has celebrated some big life milestones. In June, one of our team members gave birth to Baxter, a healthy baby boy. Another team member used Larimer Uprooted to propose to his fiancé. This team member is a lover of mountains and shared that he never expected to do this on top of a parking garage in downtown Denver, yet during this unusual year, Larimer Uprooted provided a green oasis in the middle of the pandemic. We also saw some broken bones, new dental braces, and many physical therapy appointments (for many different ailments!). We celebrated big birthdays, and entered into new decades. All of our team members are healthy, cooking more home-cooked meals then ever, and spending more time with their families.
With the experiences of first COVID and then the murder of George Floyd and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, this year has also represented our team awakening to the interconnectedness between food systems, climate, land ownership, equity and racism.
For our company this work has been mostly internal and mostly intellectual, as we gather and process our learnings to build a roadmap to becoming a consistently antiracist company. It has reshaped our business planning priorities for the coming year and is creating a new prioritization of internal company growth, a prerequisite set of steps we must take to prepare for a different future. We are committed to building a company culture that focuses on creating equity, so that we can support an environment where diversity and inclusion can be part of what balance looks like, in our team and in our work with land, food and people. We are eager to turn these words into actions as we move forward.
We have a lot of work to do – as a team, as a country, and as a globe. Yet, we are energized by that work. We feel hope – hope for the changes that we are committing to, hope for the momentum that is building, hope and belief in our team and the work ahead.
Thank you for reading this year end reflection. Please click the link below for additional updates on our specific work projects over this past year and to hear directly from our team members.
With both a pause for the immensity of everything that has taken place over this last year, and then a forward look towards the future, we wish you and yours a happy new year. Click below to read our 2020 Year in Review.
Sincerely,
Meriwether and Morgan
