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We’re not shutting down just because winter keeps rearing its snowy head.
With spring and weather winter taking turns this March, Paint-A-Thon’s volunteer crews mobilized and were in shirtsleeves on sunny Tuesday doing what we do best — making over a home’s exterior in one day. Before Wednesday’s blizzard. And we are back to work again.
Paint-A-Thon, one part of nonprofit Brothers Redevelopment’s Aging in Place Initiative, is working to keep older Coloradans and persons with disabilities in their homes, where they want to be.
Our Paint-A-Thon homeowner on Tuesday, Stella Montoya, has lived in her GES neighborhood for more than 44 years. The former cafeteria manager at Garden Place Academy in Globeville is currently the primary caregiver for her disabled son and her grandson. Widowed four years ago, she is holding the family together in the neighborhood she loves.
Stella is concerned with the magnitude of potential change that commercial development and reconstruction of Interstate 70 will bring about in her neighborhood. But she is a proud resident and has chosen to stay, despite many of her neighbors and family members moving away.
While most Paint-A-Thon volunteers are from the Denver area, they hail from all over. Dordt College volunteer teams are here on spring break from Sioux Center, Iowa, because they know a few days spent with Brothers’ Paint-A-Thon will make great positive changes in Stella’s and others’ lives that will last for many years to come. And they have fun.
And Brothers’ efforts in Globeville Elyria-Swansea don’t end with exterior house painting. Brothers received a $2 million grant from the Colorado Department of Transportation in late 2018 to preserve and protect historic working-class neighborhoods in Globeville Elyria-Swansea. Our Home Modification and Repair program will help with essential repairs as well as safety and access modifications for residents in these neighborhoods.
Brothers also joined in forming the innovative GES Affordable Housing Collaborative with community members in the GES Coalition and the Colorado Community Land Trust. The collaborative will acquire homes for placement in the neighborhood land trust and develop other single- and multifamily housing. This effort will provide attainable homes for dozens of families while maintaining the neighborhood’s character and local control.
A little help in GES — and all over Brothers’ Front Range service area — goes a long way toward keeping people in their homes, maintaining property and property values and boosting the whole community.
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