Set for Capay Valley’s full-service wellness center

Capay Valley residents will soon have local access to healthcare, optometry, pharmacy and expanded community services due to a new Esparto project with support by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The gamut of full-service wellness care will be available in the historically marginalized rural community through a partnership between the Tribe, Winters Healthcare, Rural Innovations in Social Economics Inc. (RISE, Inc.) and Brown Construction.

A history of limited, remote and non-existent services for rural Capay Valley residents, those living in the portion of Yolo County from Highway 505 west, has been a barrier to accessing preventative medical treatment, healthcare services and basic family health practices.

“The vision of this center is one community champions have been working on for decades,” Tico Zendejas, executive director of RISE, Inc. said. “It will bring access and equity to the rural populations of the Capay Valley.”

With this project in mind, Yocha Dehe acquired the Esparto site at the corner of Yolo Ave. and County Road 21A several years ago for $850,000, with a grant funded by its Doyuti T’uhkama. Now Yocha Dehe’s Doyuti T’uhkama is granting an additional $15 million for the project’s construction.

Brown Construction, through its Build It Forward Program, will donate a portion of its profits and costs to the project. Winters Healthcare and RISE Inc. will join forces as service providers in this longanticipated partnership between health, social and county services.

The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation has invested over $30 million in the Capay Valley, including $25 million in Esparto alone, to protect and foster the community, its farm-to-fork agricultural operations and the farming families who’ve made those operations their life’s work.