Neighborly love: How an unexpected friendship inspired a children’s book

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Littleton neighbors on their daily walks look forward to passing the corner of South Pierce Street and West Walker Avenue on Wednesdays. In the house on this corner, a small friendly face smiles through a kitchen picture window and waves.

“Our mail lady comes and waves to him,” said Elizabeth Albright, who lives in the house. “ e snowplow driver this morning could see him in the window and they were waving back and forth to each other… e school bus and the kids, I mean everybody waves — they all know that Andre’s in the window.”

Albright started babysitting 2-yearold Andre last August, when her neighbor posted on NextDoor asking for someone to watch her son on Wednesdays.

Six months later, Albright visited Andre’s preschool to read “Andre’s Window,” a children’s book she wrote about the child and his relationship with the world.

“I’ve kept journals my whole life, but I’ve never written about anybody else or anything else,” Albright said. “If you could see this little boy look out this window, you would know that it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, so you just kind of want to share it with other people.” e book focuses on the people and things Andre sees on the street, with an emphasis on colors.

“It got to be where I’d sit in my rocking chair and he’d look out the window and we’d talk about colors and bunnies and puppies being walked and the trucks and the school bus,” Albright said. “I just thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to write a book about this little boy looking out this window and make it a book about colors for kids.’” e book also includes cameos from Albright’s grandchildren and another child from the neighborhood.

Each spread of the book focuses on a di erent color, represented in the objects and people passing by. ere is a yellow school bus, a green bicycle, a red truck and more.

Nikki DeLaTorre, Andre’s mother, said she was honored when Albright asked to write a book about her son.

“ at’s so amazing that somebody would want to write a book about your child,” she said. “I love the book… it’s like, very simple in its writing, but it’s bold with pictures, you know, so I think it would catch a child pretty well.”

Even more than the book, DeLaTorre said she’s grateful for Albright and her husband for letting Andre

Meth remediation professionals could face more accountability with new Senate bill

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

In light of public libraries across the state nding drug contamination in communal spaces, a woman from Evergreen wants people to know contamination could be lurking anywhere — even in homes — and that’s why she’s teaming up with State Sen. Lisa Cutter to introduce a bill that would hold remediators accountable.

In 2018, Kathi McCarty’s worst nightmare came true when she found the tenant she had been renting her beautiful mountain cabin to had been using it as a lab to cook methamphetamine. e following years of McCarty’s life would include legal and nancial struggles that would ultimately end in her selling the home, fully disclosed, for a low price.

Soon after selling, McCarty would watch the new owners go on to encapsulate the contamination inside the home after failing to remediate to state standard. en they would sell it at an exorbitant price, undisclosed to the new buyer. McCarty went on to found Meth Toxins Awareness Alliance, a group that focuses on education, resources and legislation for meth contamination. She said helping others has given meaning to her misfortune.

“Why did this happen to me? And how can I take a really jacked up situation in my own life that literally cost me over half a million dollars — let’s not sugarcoat that part of it — but put it to some really good use,” McCarty said.

Meth Toxins Awareness Alliance aims to protect renters, property owners, buyers and their loved ones from meth contamination by providing education opportunities, support and work towards governmental change.

Some of that change is happening in the form of a bill that will be introduced to the Senate on March 9 to protect homeowners and renters from the potential history of illegal drug laboratories in their homes. e bill, presented by Colorado State Sen. Lisa Cutter, will add to

Kathi McCarty during remediation e orts of her Evergreen home.