Pine River Shares, a nonprofit food share program in Bayfield, entered a deal with the Bayfield School District to purchase the old primary school building Tuesday.
The school district announced it intended to sell the property in December. During a Tuesday board meeting, the Bayfield School District Board of Education unanimously voted to sell it to Pine River Shares for $1.2 million.
The building is home to the Pine River Community Resource Center – which includes Pine River Shares, Pediatric Partners of the Southwest, the Bayfield Community Treehouse, the Grief Center of Southwest Colorado, the Bayfield Farmers Market administrative office and meeting spaces for the local Girl Scout troop and Alcoholics Anonymous.
In a Facebook post, the nonprofit expressed gratitude to the school district board.
“We offer our deepest gratitude to the Bayfield School District and Superintendent for the opportunity to take the next steps to securing a forever home for Pine River Shares and the Pine River Community Resource Center,” the post said.
Pine River Shares Executive Director Pam Wilhoite said the nonprofit will continue to lease the building while it raises funds to purchase it outright.
“(The school board recognizes) the community services that Pine River Shares had provided previously and intends to do so in the future,” Wilhoite said. “We’re not officially fundraising at this point. We asked for pledges to give us an idea of what we could go in with, and we got a fair indication that we would be able to put enough down to match the offer that it would be accepted.”
Now the fundraising begins, Wilhoite said. The nonprofit intends to fund the purchase through three main channels: rental income from fully leasing the available space, grant funding and a multiyear community fundraising campaign.
“Our effort right now is to pay us and raise as much money as we can before we close, so that the monthly payments would be appropriate for a nonprofit,” Wilhoite said.
Wilhoite said it is unusual for a nonprofit to own property like this, but because Pine River Shares and the rest of the resource center serve a rural area with limited resources, ownership would allow them to better serve residents.
“Something else that I feel like is a win for us in putting forth this proposal is that we were advocating for all of those people that come to us every week for services,” Wilhoite said. “All of those people were in our hearts, which emboldened us.”
The Facebook post also thanked the community for pledging its support, which proved crucial in securing the deal with the school district.
“To our beloved community, your support makes all things possible, thank you,” the post said. “Together we are unstoppable. Our journey is not yet completed. Stay tuned.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
