Adams County Community Development Announces 2009 Community Development Awards Recipients

Adams County Community Development and the Community Development Advisory Board held the annual Adams County Community Development Awards Dinner on Thursday, April 23, 2009. The awards dinner recognized local businesses, non-profit organizations, individuals and municipalities that have made major improvements in the lives of families and neighborhoods through community development and poverty alleviation programs.

Award recipients, selected by the Adams County Community Development Advisory Board, were recognized for developing innovative or creative solutions to challenges facing residents. Honorees included:

Non-Profit Innovation: Adams 14 HOPE Family Resource Center
The Adams 14 HOPE Family Resource Center was developed from the need to serve families in crisis in Adams 14 schools. Due to rising homeless numbers and shrinking family incomes, students and families who are part of the Adams 14 community often require assistance. Commerce City’s largest employer, UPS, helped Adams 14 renovate the old city jail to create a welcoming space for families to access clothing, toiletries, showers, food, furniture, beds and bedding and other household items.

Good Neighbor Business of the Year: Mountain States Toyota
Mountain States Toyota has established itself as an upstanding community member to all of southwest Adams County, generously donating over $4,000 to United Neighborhood community groups over the last two years and supporting neighborhood clean ups, back to school events, night-out events and community resource nights. The dealership recently helped to spearhead a critical community organizing campaign with local residents, business owners, county staff and elected officials to rally behind the Save Our Neighborhood Access effort to keep the Broadway exit open.

City Innovation: City of Thornton, art EXPOsed Program
The City of Thornton’s art EXPOsed Program provides a magnificent and free learning opportunity to 100 students. These students, ages 11-16, attend culinary, dance, performance or visual art classes over the course of nine weeks. Classes are taught by highly acclaimed professional artists that offer first rate instruction. This event gives the Thornton community the opportunity to celebrate the talent and achievements of its youth resulting in students feeling supported, encouraged and confident.

Neighborhood Leader of the Year: Ruben Medina
Ruben Medina, senior recreation specialist with the City of Aurora’s Moorhead Recreation Center, located in a predominately low-income neighborhood in northern Aurora, epitomizes neighborhood leadership. In the summer of 2007, Ruben observed that many children had a dollar for lunch and used it to purchase an item from the vending machine combined with water for their midday meal. Ruben and his staff started a pilot snack project with donated surplus supplemental food such as bread, chips, jelly, peanut butter and various other food items and drinks from the Adams County Food Distribution Center. In the beginning, 30 children would come in for a daily snack, and now over 80 youth come to the center after school daily for snacks.

In 2008, Ruben introduced cooking and food preparation classes and began holding community meetings which led to teen parent and teen pregnancy support groups with the help of community resources. Soon after, Ruben partnered with Operation Frontline, a nonprofit that provides no cost cooking and nutrition training to the youth and adults in the Moorhead neighborhood. Ruben continues to host community meetings to learn what other services and activities his community neighbors would like to see at Moorhead. His philosophy has been to ask his neighbors what they need and want, and find a way to meet those needs with a positive attitude and innovative solutions.

Community Development Local Hero: Santa’s Sleigh
In the name Santa’s Sleigh, ‘Sleigh’ stands for “Sponsors and Law Enforcement on I-70 Giving Hope.” Their mission is to anonymously give back to the community by seeing that children who might not otherwise have an enjoyable holiday will not be forgotten or overlooked. Families are nominated through the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, the victim advocates program and local schools, churches, municipal governments and food banks. The program concentrates on the children of the family. A delivery date is set prior to Christmas when Santa rides in a sheriff’s car with a uniformed officer and a truck carrying gifts. The presence of the officer along with Santa can create a different image of law enforcement for many of the community’s “at risk” youth. Some of the recent sponsors were once recipients who have come full circle and now want to give back to their community.

Future Leader: Matthew LaCrue
Matthew, student body president at Adams City High School, is a true leader among his peers and possesses a high level of self-motivation. As student body president, Matthew presented the opening remarks at this year’s Adams 14 Welcome Back Rally, which over 1,000 district employees attended. He has also represented the district and school at the past two Colorado Association of School Boards’ annual statewide meetings, at several of the Commerce City Rotary Club luncheons, numerous community meetings and Adams 14 Board of Education meetings.

A true example of Matthew’s leadership can be seen in his decision to help organize an Adams 14 Student Board of Education (SBOE). Through his efforts, the Adams 14 Board of Education passed a policy allowing the formation of the Student Board, which brings together student leadership from across the district. This year, the board has turned its attention to reducing student dropouts by increasing student engagement in the classroom. His work has brought attention to the quality of students he represents and their passion for making Commerce City a better place to live, work, and especially, go to school. He has already become a future leader within the Commerce City community.

Adams County Community Development Awards sponsors included Mountain States Toyota, Wal-Mart and several other Adams County agencies and non-profit organizations.