Helping break the cycle of nicotine

positions—often in spaces that tested my ability, with the acute reminder that I was the youngest in the room,” he said.

After he served with the Marines, he and his wife traveled to Washington State for a time to nish school. But he abandoned that work, realizing he didn’t need a degree to do what he wanted to do. ey came out to Colorado in about 2018.

“When I left the military in 2016,

I distilled my experience into the framework that would guide me to today’s community and stewardship,” Sword said.

“Brighton Shares the Harvest is committed to lowering the barrier of access to healthy local produce for the people of Brighton. More produce, more tables, one harvest at a time.”

From veteran to farmer

“My interest in working with Brighton Shares the Harvest is very serendipitous,” Sword said. After leaving the military, he joined an agricultural program called “Veterans to Farmers”.

“ e program has a lot networking capabilities and a lot of incubator programs but what they didn’t have was something that was very close to me, geographically,” he said.

He learned from other farmers and from the program’s executive directors that the most pressing thing throughout the season is going out every day to check on your plants.

“It takes 30 minutes, so the closer you can be to that place at any stage is going to be bene cial for you to make something,” Sword said.

Sword said he heard about Brighton Shares in the newsletter he receives and learned that the program was shutting down.

“I wanted to start something very close to farming, and looking back on it now, it was very ambitious,” Sword said. “I wanted to be a hub