This issue of the Denver VOICE includes a special section on volunteer opportunities throughout Metro Denver. This is the third year the VOICE has partnered with Metro Volunteers to publish their Volunteer Guide, an excellent resource on volunteer opportunities in the area. National Volunteer Week is April 12-18. Make sure you check out the guide for ideas on how you can give back to your community that week—and all year long!
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Spend any time with Meg Stearns and her service dog Elly and two things are likely to happen: you’ll get caught up in Meg’s bright outlook on life, and Elly—part beagle, part husky, and all sweetness—will nudge her nose under your hand. I had the pleasure of meeting this matched pair on a sunny day in February. Meg was picking up papers to sell and Elly was showing off a new red knitted sweater.
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Simone Groene-Nieto remembers a man who came into the library after finding out he was being evicted. The man had a matter of days to find another option. “He had never used a computer before, he’s frantically trying to find work and connect with a program that can help him,” said Groene-Nieto, a librarian in the Denver Public Library’s Community Technology Center. Though the CTC offers a wide array of computer skills classes and training, it wasn’t best equipped to deal with the man’s urgent needs. “It’s really frustrating to not be able to help people as much as they need,” said Groene-Nieto.
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The City of Denver is revitalizing its composting program in order to accommodate residents’ desire to go green.
In 2008 Denver Solid Waste Management (DSWM), a division of the Department of Public Works, performed a waste composition sampling funded by a state grant. Before the analysis, the assumption was that Colorado’s garbage was 25–30 percent organic material that could be compostable, which would have been in line with the national average.
I would like to give a shout-out to many of the wonderful people that I have been blessed to know over the past 40 months that I have been a VOICE vendor.
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I woke up this morning, so dark and bleak, unable to continue my laborious routine.
My spirit trudges on, yet the body has grown weak
By Sarah Harvey, Editor
Last month I tried selling the Denver VOICE. It was part of our Big Sell event, during which we challenged people to team up with vendors for an hour and learn how to sell the paper. I paired up with Michael Burkley—if you’ve been reading recent issues, he was our featured vendor for January.
In one hour at least a hundred people walked past me. I sold five papers. One sale was to a former colleague—he came down to my corner to buy a paper because he knew I was taking part in the event. Another sale was to a woman I knew in high school. We hadn’t talked before the event, but she recognized me and stopped. Really then, of the hundred or so people who walked past me in that hour, I only managed to convince three to stop.
Last month the Denver VOICE challenged staff, board members, and community supporters to team up with vendors for an hour and learn how to sell the VOICE. Though no one expected it to be an easy job, all who took part in the event found selling the paper more difficult than they anticipated. Below, a few guest vendors sound off on the experience of being a VOICE vendor for one hour.
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Hunger Relief Center Opening
By Gina Tron
Metro CareRing will open a new Hunger Relief Center this month. “We believe that it’s really a travesty that one out of every four children in Denver, approximately, is suffering from food insecurity or going hungry,” Lynne Butler, executive director of Metro CareRing said. That is one reason for the opening of the hunger prevention center, which Metro CareRing hopes can make a difference.
By Nancy Layne | Photos by Stanley Sigalov
There is a desert in the heart of north Denver. A food desert to be more exact—an area without access to fresh produce. GreenLeaf hopes to change this.
GreenLeaf empowers communities through food justice by growing fresh produce while at the same time fostering youth leadership. Currently there are no grocery stores in north Denver with the exception of a Safeway at the edge of Five Points. Nationally, this is a common problem in urban areas. “Across the country there are 23.5 million people without access to healthy produce. This is seen a lot in low-income communities,” said Cody Meinhardt, executive director of GreenLeaf.