Housing, Healing, and Hope: Colorado Peacemaker Awards Lift Up Community Builders

Story and Photo by Giles Clasen

How do peacemakers respond when neighbors are pushed to the margins?” Jeff Johnson, executive director of Mile High Ministries, asked the crowd at the organization's Colorado Peacemaker Awards on Friday morning. “They draw people together whose power has been taken away from them and remind them of the power that they have on being a good citizen.”

That vision of peacemaking, what Johnson described as shalom, "an all-encompassing and all-inclusive kind of wellness, a flourishing, a way of thriving that leaves nobody out, pushes nobody to the margins, just concludes and welcomes and keeps drawing in," set the tone for the annual celebration honoring four Coloradans whose work brings stability, healing, and community to those too often overlooked.

From the start, the event, held at the Mile High Ministries' affordable housing complex Clara Brown Commons, underscored the organization’s long-standing commitment to housing that Johnson described as healing and strengthening communities.

Each of the four recipients lives out this belief in practical, tangible ways. One has turned personal tragedy into a memoir and a business that draws neighbors together over food and conversation.

Another has spent decades pushing for safer streets and support for families while raising her own children in the community she fought to strengthen. A third has dedicated more than forty years to building affordable housing and healing communities scarred by displacement.

And another has carried forward a legacy of service, connecting neighbors and nurturing spaces where those on the margins find stability and dignity.

“It’s one thing to give folks housing. We’re trying to provide stability. We’re trying to provide a path forward. We’re trying to get people in a place where they can just simply be involved.”

Defining Peace Beyond the Absence of Conflict

Mile High Ministries Executive Director Jeff Johnson set the tone for the morning by reflecting on what it means to be a peacemaker.

“Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called children of God,’” Johnson said. “When we think about peacemakers, we’re not just thinking about something that’s the opposite of conflict. That’s not a bad thing. But we’re thinking about something additional to that. The best way to get at that is to think about the beautiful Hebrew word, shalom—an all-encompassing and all-inclusive kind of wellness, a flourishing, a way of thriving that leaves nobody out, pushes nobody to the margins, just concludes and welcomes and keeps drawing in.”

Johnson added that peacemakers are those who respond when the vulnerable are being pushed to the edges, when neighbors can no longer afford to live in their communities, or when disunity tears at the fabric of society.

“They include the excluded. They draw people together and remind them of the power they have as good citizens,” he said.

The first honoree, Prince Kanigiri, is an entrepreneur, author, and founder of Kultivar, a café and community hub located at Denver’s historic Molly Brown House. Kanigiri survived the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, later resettling in Denver as a refugee. His memoir, Prince: Beauty for Ashes, chronicles both his survival and his journey of reconciliation.

At age 15, Kanigiri spent weeks evading soldiers and neighbors who had turned violent. Kanigiri lost several friends and family members to the violence.

 “Three years ago, when I was working at my business, I started reflecting on where my passion really came from. That reflection took me back to my childhood days, a place I had long avoided visiting. For years, I had been afraid to revisit the past, fearing it reopened the most painful chapters of my life,” Kanigiri said.

The awards also honored Sandy Douglas, a community leader whose decades of work began as a result of the struggles she faced.

Douglas was honored for more than three decades of tireless work building community in the face of hardship.

When she first moved to North Denver 35 years ago, she was a newly divorced mother with little support for raising her boys. The local organizations she turned to for help were closed off, more like private clubs than lifelines, she said. Rather than give up, Douglas “kept pushing, pressing for tomorrow,” as she put it, until she carved out a place for herself and others at the decision-making tables, ensuring community voices were heard..

"Out of her own pain, she started pulling people together. Having once been excluded from those tables, she now welcomes everybody else to the table,” Johnson said.

“I moved over here 35 years ago. I was getting divorced. There was nothing to help me with my children,” she recalled. “I just kept pushing. And finally, I was at some of those tables and not having to worry about being paid. Thank you for trying to be a blessing.”

Douglas participated in prayer walks in the neighborhood and never stopped advocating to bring affordable housing and opportunity to what had been an often overlooked Denver neighborhood.

"Out of her own pain, she started pulling people together. Having once been excluded from those tables, she now welcomes everybody else to the table.”

The final honorees, Ray and Marilyn Stransky, were recognized for more than four decades of work in affordable housing and community development. As founders of Hope Communities, the couple has helped create affordable homes in Denver and beyond since 1980. Their work, they emphasized, was always about more than buildings.

“We wanted it to be not just about building buildings, but about building communities, supporting communities. Because community is where the peacemaking comes,” said Ray.

The couple recalled starting their work after witnessing a neighbor being evicted in 1979, as she pushed her belongings down the street in a shopping cart, her children carrying what they could in trash bags. That moment, they said, sparked a lifelong commitment.

As the ceremony closed, Johnson returned to his earlier reflection. “Those who want to hold onto their life with a tight grip will lose it,” he said. “But those who relax their grip, who pour themselves out on behalf of others, will save it. The people we honor today are those people.”