Founder’s Story

For starters (pun intended), my road to Roots & Revival Collective was a varied one. My guess is yours is too. Welcome :)

Seeds of Change

I grew up sitting around the kitchen island watching my mom cook. She showed me the rhythm of a working kitchen, and modeled what it meant to nourish a family with your own hands. Even if I complained about her healthy cooking then, it shaped something fundamental in me. When I was in college, my older sister moved to upstate New York and worked on a regenerative farm. She'd share her knowledge about biodiversity, regenerative farming practices, organic foods, and the importance of sourcing your food locally. Despite her best attempts, I wouldn’t go on to adopt the same practices. For some reason, it all seemed otherworldly to me then—something attainable only in her New York bubble, not in my reality.

Cultural Wisdom

Things shifted when I studied abroad in Peru and Chile. I experienced something that would forever change my perspective on community and connection. In Peru, I spent time exploring Machu Picchu learning about the ancient Incan people and their deep connection to the world around them. In Chile, I drank yerba mate with the Mapuche people and there was something transformative about their slow way of enjoying the warmth of the fire, passing the mate gourd from person to person, and simply being in community. No rush, no agenda—just presence and connection. This experience planted seeds that wouldn't fully bloom until years later.

In 2017, I met my husband and a few years later gained a mother-in-law who was born in Calnali, a small mountain town in Hidalgo, Mexico. She became my teacher in ways I never expected. Through her stories of ancient Aztec traditions—from preparing chocolate from raw cacao to the process of nixtamalization—I learned that food was medicine, history, and connection all at once. Making salsas and tortillas from scratch with her wasn't just cooking; it was participating in centuries of wisdom.

The Catalyst:

Becoming a Mother & Finding Community

When we moved to Fort Collins in 2021 and welcomed our first daughter via homebirth in 2022, everything changed. Suddenly, the choices I made weren't just about me—they were about the tiny humans I was raising. We quickly realized the hypocrisy of promoting healthy foods to our kids while secretly eating junk ourselves. If we wanted to raise healthy children, we had to model the behavior. Our midwives connected us with an incredible community of like-minded families. They normalized things that once seemed lofty—buying from local farms, making fermented foods, choosing non-toxic products. Despite a strong interest in these areas, it wasn’t until someone physically handed me something tangible that I actually started making changes - a family member gifted me a kombucha complete with scoby, a neighbor gave me a jar of sourdough starter, a friend that worked in agriculture mentioned CSA (community-supported agriculture) shares and mentioned the name of some local farms.

I would go on to brew kombucha, became an avid sourdough baker (often experimenting with new flavors and recipes), a CSA share owner, and a regular at our local farms.  I found an incredible group of fellow mom friends who answered all my questions, gave me advice, and shared a deep conviction to do things differently.

That's when I realized: getting started, and finding those to do it with was the hardest part.

Why Roots & Revival Collective Exists

While driving home through the Colorado mountains from a weekend camping with friends, and on the heels of having our second daughter, I began thinking about how to revive the normal rhythms and practices around our food and health that had fallen to the wayside as our life got busier and busier. I had been consuming podcasts, audiobooks and all sorts of content and was reinvigorated to dive in. But, the reality quickly hit me that I’d have to take it slow and take baby steps. I told my husband, what if we just commit to one small change a month? And the rest is history…but, as you can tell, history is important to me :)

I’ve been where you are. I've felt overwhelmed by the noise of wellness marketing. I've wondered if healthy living was only for people with more time, money, or knowledge than me. I've built things up in my head only to discover they were simpler than I imagined.

We’re here to reassure you that getting started is always the hardest part, everything is easier when you have a community, ancient wisdom and modern life can coexist, and small, consistent changes lead to vital and energizing transformation.

Every revival starts with one person. We're glad you’re here.