Washington Park Profile May 2024

Parents may qualify for grocery money

Pioneers to face Minnesota at Ball Arena next November

BY JOHN RENFROW JRENFROW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e University of Denver’s championship hockey program will host the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game for the third time, according to the school’s athletic department.

e Pioneers — who recently won their fth national title in the last 20 years and 10th overall (an NCAA record) — are set to face the University of Minnesota anksgiving weekend at Ball Arena in 2025.

“ e University of Denver is honored to host the 2025 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game and excited to rekindle a rivalry between two of

the most storied programs in all of college hockey on the heels of Denver’s 10th national championship,” said Josh Berlo, Denver vice chancellor for athletics and Ritchie Center operations, in a press release. “ e eyes of the college hockey world will be on Denver and Ball Arena over that holiday weekend.”

It’s a rematch between Denver and Minnesota’s 2004 matchup in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game in St. Paul. Denver lost 5-2.  e two programs are some of the most decorated in all of college hockey. e teams have combined for 42 Frozen Four appearances, 15 national championships and fea-

tured a total of 25 NHL Draft picks on their respective rosters during the 2023-24 season.

DU is 13-3-1 in the last 17 meetings against Minnesota since the start of the 2007-08 campaign and has a 41-39-5 all-time mark against the Gophers in Denver.

e Pioneers have an overall record of 73-94-12 all-time against the Gophers in a series that dates back to Jan. 1, 1951 and are 4-2-1 against their former WCHA foe in seven neutral-site contests.

DU is getting support from its local parent-pro team, the Colorado Avalanche.

Summer EBT program to o er up $120 per child

BY ANN SCHIMKE CHALKBEAT COLORADO

Starting in June, hundreds of thousands of low-income Colorado families will get $120 per child to pay for groceries during summer break.

e program, called Summer EBT, aims to help parents of children who attend preschool through 12th grade in public schools pay for food when free school meals are unavailable or harder to access. State o cials expect families of more than 300,000 children to bene t.

A Colorado law passed during a special legislative session in November enabled the state to join the new program, which is mostly funded by the federal government with a small contribution from the state. Nearly three dozen states are o ering the program this year.

In recent years, Colorado has taken several steps to reduce the number of children who go hungry in the state. Starting this school year, the vast majority of Colorado students can get free school meals regardless of family income because of a universal meal program approved by voters in 2022. A program similar to Summer EBT was in place during the pandemic, but it expired last summer.

Colorado families are eligible for Summer EBT cards if they receive public bene ts such as SNAP, Medicaid, or Colorado Works, or if their children qualify for free or reduced-price school meals.

Most families will automatically receive a letter in May for each child eligible for Summer EBT, with preloaded cards arriving in the mail shortly after. To access the money on the card, families must set up a personal identi cation number. ey can do this by calling 888-328-2656, entering the card number, and following the prompts.

Families who believe their child is eligible for Summer EBT, but who didn’t receive an eligibility letter can contact the Summer EBT Support Center at 800-5365298 (text 720-741-0550) or email cdhs_ sebt_supportcenter@state.co.us.

Chalkbeat is a nonpro t news site covering educational change in public schools.

The University of Denver’s championship hockey team was awarded the 2025 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game. The Pioneers will play the University of Minnesota at Ball Arena next November. Above, the Pioneers play against the Colorado College Tigers at Ball Arena in Denver in 2023.

C.OURTESY OF MORGAN ENGEL/CLARKSON CREATIV

HALL OF FAME

“ e state of Colorado has a rich tradition of college hockey and what better way to showcase that than with one the most successful programs in NCAA history, the University of Denver, taking on another powerhouse, the University of Minnesota,” said Avalanche General Manager Chris MacFarland. “ e U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame weekend is always a special event and the Avalanche and Ball Arena are proud to be a part of the festivities.”

Tickets for the game start at $25. Visit denverpioneers.com for information updates on pre-sale and other ticket packages, including premium seating and suites.

e date and time of the 2025 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game will be announced following the NHL schedule release.

The Denver Pioneers compete against the Colorado College Tigers at Ball Arena in Denver last January.

now part of Washington Park’s maintenance complex, evokes the late 1800s, when the land occupied by the park was used for growing crops like corn and cherries. As the park celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, many secrets still lie underneath the surface.

Story on page 6.

TYLER SCHANK/CLARKSON CREATIVE P

Edwin K. Whitehead’s Folk Victorianstyle farmhouse,

PHOTO BY TIM COLLINS

The local food pantry that serves students had its funding cut by 60%

BY CHANCY J. GATLIN-ANDERSON

SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON PARK PROFILE

For the past 10 years, Denver South High School has been home to the Giving Grocery, a nonpro t organization that serves as a weekly food pantry for the school’s students and their families.

rough grant funding and generous donations from the Washington Park community and throughout

Denver , the Giving Grocery serves more than 200 students and their families each ursday afterschool. It is a full-service, choice-model food pantry that provides food and personal items.

“Many of the students report that we are their family’s primary food source,” said Jen Frankel, organizer of the Giving Grocery. “We really try to get the kids coming in on a weekly basis with what their families need and it works out. Being a high school rather than an elementary school, the kids can be a lot more responsible for that kind of thing. It allows the students to take on a sort of adulting role. ere is a sense of pride there.”

DONATIONS

Giving Grocery recently celebrated its10-year anniversary, but now, however, the program is in jeopardy of signi cantly restricting its help to the community. e 501c3 organization’s grant funding was cut by 60%, leaving organizers and volunteers concerned for the future of the program.

Frenkel said it takes about $200,000 to operate the Giving Grocery and keep it stocked throughout the school year. ose funds go toward purchasing thousands of pounds of meat, milk and eggs, among other items, each week.

“We’ve lost about $120,000 of that, likely because there is so much need in Denver right now,” said Frenkel. “ ere are a lot of organizations who are responding to the migrant crisis, and so there are a lot of food pantries that are competing for the same funds. We were in a collaborative grant with 11 other Denver Public Schools food pantries, and they all lost it (funding), too. Funding is getting harder and harder to nd.”

e Giving Grocery works on the same calendar as the Denver Public School system, August through May. e program currently has enough funding to nish out the school year, though it will struggle to operate at the start of the 20242025 school year.

“We would love donations from individuals, people in the Wash Park neighborhood and beyond, and anyone who feels moved to donate,” said Frenkel. “We’d also like to engage with anyone who has connections to resources, grants and foundations. e more connections we can make with people in the community, the better we’ll be for fundraising down the line.”

e Giving Grocery is associated with the Denver South High School Parent Teacher Student Association. is connection provides it with 501c3 status and allows it to function without any overhead.

“We have no paid sta . We are all volunteers. It takes about 25 of us every week to get the Giving Grocery working. Taking deliveries, setting up, all that. Nobody takes a dime for any of that,” said Frenkel. “We don’t pay for our space or any overhead. Truly every dollar that people donate goes directly to food

and personal care (items for the students). at is truly unique.”

“We’re always trying to draw attention to the fact that although Denver South High School is right there in the middle of an a uent neighborhood, people don’t realize how much need there actually is there,” said Frenkel. “South High School is home to the Newcomer Center. Students come from all over the world who have been through unimaginable trauma. It is special that our school is as diverse as it is and we are there to help support all of the people who need it.”

e Newcomer Center is designed for eligible students new to both the country and Denver Public Schools – and many of the students who are involved with the Newcomer Center lack transportation. Unlike other food pantries, the Giving Grocery is located within a school, thus eliminating the need for external transportation across the city.

“One of the bene ts of our food pantry as opposed to the other food pantries around town is transportation. It is one of the biggest issues we see amongst our kids, especially the newcomers. ey and their families may not have cars and sometimes RTD can have issues,” said Frenkel. “Being right there on the Denver South High School campus, students can come directly after school. ey’re already there. ey can take their districtprovided transportation home afterwards, so we are eliminating an additional barrier for them.”

Also unlike many food pantries, the Giving Grocery provides personal items in addition to food.

“We try to have a few types of personal care items on the shelves every week. It could be feminine hygiene products, laundry detergent, deodorant, shampoo, lotion and things like that. ose are the hardest things for us to keep in stock because they’re expensive for us to buy,” said Frenkel. “We depend on a lot of partners to supply those items … who give us things in bulk.”

People and organizations such as church groups, book clubs and other community groups also put on personal care drives to help the Giving Grocery make such items available to students.

donation to the Giving Grocery, visit https://donorbox.org/denversouth-giving-grocery. e program also has a running Amazon Wish List that people are encouraged to donate through.

“ ere is a lot of talk in the food security world about the stigma of going to a food pantry – for kids, especially, who are afraid of being seen by their peers,” said Frenkel. “We’ve actually not found any of that with the Giving Grocery. ere is a lot of camaraderie with the students who use us. ere is a sense of pride in that they are helping their families every week.”

While the Giving Grocery has a long waiting list of volunteers, it is in need of monetary donations and donations of food and personal care items. To give a monetary

To learn more about Denver South High School’s Giving Grocery, visit thegivinggrocery.org.

Underneath Washington Park lies a hidden past

BY KIRSTEN DAHL COLLINS

SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON PARK PROFILE

Denver’s beloved Washington Park, with its lakes, gardens and meadows, is turning 125 this year. But park regulars may not know this green 160-acre expanse as well as they think. Just below the surface lies a hidden past.

Where triceratops trod

Dig two or three feet down, and you’re in the late Cretaceous era, 65 million years ago, said James Hagadorn, curator of geology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. According to Hagadorn, Washington Park sits atop an ancient, 18-foot-thick layer of sedimentary rock dating from a time when triceratops browsed the Denver area,  munching on tropical foliage.   “ is sediment is the top layer under the park,” Hagadorn said.  He explained that it’s nearly identical to the tilted layers visitors ock to see at Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison.

e famous footprints that made

Dinosaur Ridge a national landmark record the migration of many dinosaurs, including duck-billed plant-eaters and ostrich-like carnivores, along the beach of an ancient sea. Since the sedimentary layer under Washington Park is so similar, it suggests that the park’s work crews may have unknowingly turned up some ancient bones around the turn of the century when they excavated the park lakes and graded the land.

“Most of Denver is underlain by dinosaur-bearing Cretaceous rocks,” said paleontologist Kirk Johnson, who directs the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. Johnson dug up many a fossil during his 22-year tenure at DMNS, before leaving Denver to helm the Smithsonian.

Prehistoric waters flow under the park

Fast forward to the Pleistocene, 16,000 years ago, when mammoths, camels and giant sloths roamed the grassy plains of Colorado. e land underlying Washington Park also harbors traces of this era. According

to Johnson, the park land sits atop aquifers — sandy underground deposits — lled with water from the Ice Age.

“ e water you nd in them today is likely only 10,000 to 20,000 years old,” Johnson said. “It fell as rain on the backs of mammoths before seeping into the ground and eventually into the buried sand layers.”

Traces of the Wild West

e park also bears traces of a wild and unspoiled Colorado, as it looked before the 1600s when buffalo and Indian tribes roamed the high plains.

Back then, the land that eventually became Washington Park consisted of “rolling sandy hills of short grass prairies, with no lakes,” said landscape architect Frank Miltenberger.

A number of arroyos — dry creek beds periodically lled by rainfall — once ran through today’s park, said Miltenberger, a Wash Park resident whose hobby is researching and illustrating scenes of Colorado before White settlement. Smith Ditch,

the historic 1867 irrigation canal owing through the park, roughly follows a path carved out by these old arroyos, Miltenberger said. By using these natural depressions, ditch builder John W. Smith probably saved his work crews a lot of digging.

Smith also used a natural hollow in the landscape when he created Smith Lake, although his workers probably had to enlarge and deepen it. Now the centerpiece of the park’s northern half, the 16-acre pond is frequented by trout anglers and visitors happily pedaling swan boats. Before Smith diverted water from his ditch to ll the lake, it was reputedly a bu alo wallow. ese large circular depressions dotted western prairies before the native grasses were plowed under.  ey functioned a little like day spas for the bison, who rolled in the dusty hollows to help shed their winter coats, squash pesty insects and cool o .

Landscape architect Frank Miltenberger’s illustration depicts a Colorado of long ago, with an arroyo (a dry creek bed) entering the land that will one day become the southeastern corner of Washington Park. Miltenberger enjoys researching and recreating scenes of Colorado as it might have looked before 1600. COURTESY OF FRANK MILTENBERGER

HIDDEN PAST

A 19th-century farm gives birth to the park

By the late 1800s, many farmers were working the land in south Denver. One of them was Edwin K. Whitehead, who owned a farm just south of Smith Lake. History does not record what Whitehead grew, but onions, beets, squash, beans and cherries were popular crops at the time. Corn is another possibility, thanks to irrigation from Smith Ditch. Before the ditch was built, annual rainfall was too scanty to make corn a viable crop.

At the same time, the City Beautiful movement sprang to life in Chicago and began inspiring many towns across the U.S. to create large, European-style parks. In 1891, the City of South Denver (later absorbed by the City of Denver) caught the zeitgeist and paid Whitehead $170 per acre for “20 acres … between South Downing

CELEBRATE WASHINGTON PARK’S 125TH BIRTHDAY

The community is invited to a jubilee to celebrate one of Denver’s favorite places — Washington Park. Being put on jointly by Friends And Neighbors (FANS) of Washington Park and Denver Parks and Recreation, the event is family friendly and free to attend. It takes place on Aug. 7 at the park, which is located roughly at South Downing Street and East Louisiana Avenue. A number of activities are planned, including:

• Photography and essay contests

• A loop road walk (people and dogs welcome) accompanied by the South High School drumline

• Trishaw rides around the park for older adults by Cycling Without Age

and South Franklin streets from Kentucky Avenue to Tennessee Avenue,” according to local author Phil Goodstein’s book, “ e Haunts of Washington Park.” e city continued buying up the surrounding land until 1916, Goodstein wrote, when the park reached its current size of 160.8 acres.

• Live music, food trucks and cupcakes

• Free day at the recreation center

• Lawn bowling lessons, tennis clinics and a youth fishing event

• History displays and an educational booth with the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Alliance, which will be bringing live animals

• Tour of the Eugene Field House, which now serves as park ranger o ces

• A garden scavenger hunt and a tree walk with arborist Sonia John

More information will be available as the date approaches. To learn more about FANS of Washington Park, visit fanswashingtonpark.org.

In 1899, the nascent park, which stretched from Smith Lake to the Edwin Whitehead farmhouse, was named “Washington” in honor of the centennial of George Washington’s death. European-trained landscape architect Reinhard Schuetze drew up the plans. A fellow immigrant from Germa-

ny, John B. Lang, signed on as the park’s rst superintendent and moved into Whitehead’s vacant farmhouse, according to Goodstein. Soon after, he built a matching barn for the park horses. e farmhouse and stables, with their gables and decorative brick detailing, were designed in the Folk Victorian style, a less expensive version of the era’s fashionable Queen Anne-style homes.

Today, Washington Park’s maintenance department occupies Whitehead’s old farmhouse and Lang’s horse barn. Few of the joggers and dog-walkers who hurry by these handsome old buildings know that they re ect a time when Washington Park was a working 19th-century farm.

But then, few probably know that Smith Ditch was once an arroyo, or that two feet under the park’s grassy meadows, dinosaurs once roamed.  As the community celebrates Washington Park’s past and future above ground on Aug. 7, one thing will never change — the land beneath will keep its secrets.

A recent photo taken from the same viewpoint as Frank Miltenberger’s illustration shows the southeastern corner of Washington Park, near Denver South High School.

PHOTO BY TIM COLLINS

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“Tri Tri Tri Again”

Columnists & Guest Commentaries

Columnist opinions are not necessarily those of the Profile. We welcome letters to the editor. Please include your full name, address and the best number to reach you by telephone.

Email letters to csteadman@ coloradocommunitymedia.com

Deadline

5 p.m. on the 20th of each month for the following month’s paper.

This maze was inspired by triangles and creating a maze with multiple steps. To solve, start at either ‘S’ found in the bottom of the far left and right corners, and maze-out to any of the three ‘E’s for end, found in the three corners of the center triangle.

Imagine a world that values aging

Idon’t know about you, but I cringe when I see young people talking loudly to people who look older than themselves. Or when people say to one another, “Wow, you still look really good for your age.” It never ceases to amaze me just how ageist we are to one another and to ourselves.

Ageism is stereotyping and discrimination against individuals or groups based on their age. Studies have shown that 82% of older adults experience ageism daily. We develop ageist attitudes as early as age 3. And, unless we do something about ending ageism, it may get worse for all of us because we’re an aging society. According to the

LIVING & AGING WELL

Peter Kaldes

Census, by 2029, we will have more people over 65 than under 18. We see ageism everywhere — but it seems it does its most harm in our education system, in the media and at work. From schools celebrating the rst 100 days by requiring children to wear costumes as if they’re 100-years-old to universities denying access to lifelong learning opportunities. If we valued aging, our education system would

prepare us for getting older, not mock it. Imagine universities that prepare leaders for the demographic shift with courses such as “ e Economics of Aging” or “National Security and Aging.” As adults, we get wrinkles and tell ourselves we need to reverse the signs of aging, or that we’re too old to be wearing certain things. If we valued aging, we would be less “youth-obsessed” and more “life-obsessed.” Studies show that all these negative views of aging double the risk of cardiovascular events and increase the likelihood of dementia. But with a positive view of aging,

Strong bones for strong women

An unknown, yet highly common change that women might feel in their journey through life is a di erence in physical strength from a loss of bone density. Also known as osteoporosis, this progressive condition is a decrease in bone mineral density and bone mass with a heightened risk of fractures.

One of the main causes of osteoporosis is aging and menopause. Up to 20% of bone loss in women happens as women age and one in two women above the age of 60 will suffer a fracture in their lifetime from menopausal osteoporosis. Women are at a higher risk of the development of osteoporosis than men be-

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has a science-based plan for managing mountain lions

I am a Colorado native, and my wife and I have been Washington Park residents for over a decade. We are not mountain lion hunters or trappers. I came face to face with a mountain lion while hiking in Colorado a number of years ago, and since then, have done a lot of research on them.

WOMEN’S WELLNESS

ere appears to be a lot of misinformation being spread in regards to the initiative to ban trophy hunting mountain lions. In response to this,

Dr. Terry Dunn

cause menopause is the most common cause, according to the Endocrine Society. It is never too early to build stability and strength in bones. Women should increase their intake of Vitamin D and calcium, as they play a major role in bone health. Vitamin D allows the body to absorb calcium, a mineral that is crucial to bone density. Spending time in the sun is a primary source of Vitamin D. Some calcium rich

Colorado Parks and Wildlife put out a 24-minute video detailing the tools they use to manage mountain lions. ey support the continued use of all the tools they have available, including hunting, to manage mountain lions, bobcats and other furbearers.

In this video, Mark Vieira, CPW’s Carnivore and Furbearer Program manager, states that “hound hunting (mountain lions) is an important tool we have in Colorado” to manage mountain lion populations. Hounds are not only used for hunting, but also used by CPW as a tool to collar lions so they can be studied. He also

foods to incorporate into a diet to build bone strength are broccoli, chia seeds, milk, oranges and salmon. Including regular resistance strength training, such as dumbbells or weight machines, can support bone health.

e hormone estrogen slows down the natural breakdown of bones in women. erefore, during the aging process when women’s hormones begin to change, one thing that can occur is uctuating, lower levels of estrogen increasing the possibility of osteoporosis development. e decrease in estrogen continues for postmenopausal women, which is why it is important to build and maintain bone strength

before it is too late.

Women can receive an osteoporosis diagnosis during a routine checkup. A doctor will take an X-ray or body scan to measure how many grams of calcium and other minerals are within a section of the bone. e spine, hip or forearm are the commonly tested bones because they are the most prone to breaking from osteoporosis. A diagnosis will help monitor the progression of bone loss and how to take preventative measures.

Dr. Terry Dunn is the owner of Foothills Urogynecology, a Denver-based practice specializing in women’s health. To learn more, visit www.urogyns.com.

at behavior change because of a lifetime of committing to reaching goals.

states that by law, “all harvested lion meat must be made suitable for human consumption.”

Please watch CPW’s video for more information on how they manage mountain lions in Colorado. e video is titled “Mountain Lion Management Update” and was published in January of 2024 in response to the misinformation about their stance. CPW’s video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PP01E9qO2MU or on the CPW website.

As proposed, the initiative would in fact remove CPW’s science-based

we could live nearly eight years longer.

Imagine if we stopped using the line, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Because, actually, you can. Studies show that older dogs focus and concentrate better than puppies. Older adults are better

ABOUT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Colorado Community Media welcomes letters to the editor. Please note the following rules:

With unemployment levels at near-record lows, we’re in a tight labor market and employers are having a tough time lling vacancies. Yet, they overlook older workers which, according to AARP, costs the U.S. an estimated $850 billion in gross domestic product. If we valued aging, we’d encourage generative, productive aging

— not rely on centuries-old ideas that we want to do nothing as we age. German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck is given credit for our modern version of retirement, which the U.S. later adopted when life expectancy was 62. But now it’s 77, and more people want and need to work, yet the hiring practices of businesses ignore older workers. Imagine if businesses intentionally recruited or retrained older workers. ese multigenera-

• Email your letter to csteadman@ coloradocommunitymedia.com. Do not send via postal mail. Put the words “letter to the editor” in the email subject line.

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management plan for mountain lions, bobcats and furbearers. is would hamstring CPW when it comes to these species. CPW supports a balance of all wildlife in this state and uses a lot of tools, including hunting, to manage the wildlife based on CPW’s objectives for each species.

Please educate yourselves before signing petitions to get things on ballots. ere’s a lot of important details beneath the headlines that must be read and understood before making a decision.

Tyler Streich, Denver

tional workplaces would be more innovative, have stronger pipelines of talent and be more resilient.

I’m optimistic that we’re all becoming more aware of age bias in everything we do. Imagine if society valued all our future selves.

Peter Kaldes, Esq., is the president and CEO of Next50, a national foundation based in Denver. Learn more at next50foundation.org.

should not be submitted to other outlets or previously posted on websites or social media. Submitted letters become the property of CCM and should not be republished elsewhere.

Feb. 26-March 1.

“The Kids For Wish Kids program raises enough money to fund one-third of the wishes Make-AWish Colorado grants annually,” said Sarah Grosh, Make-A-Wish Colorado’s director of community development. “We are so incredibly grateful for the impact made by students all across the state.”

More than 200 schools throughout Colorado took part in the 2024 Kids For Wish Kids program. Here are some highlights from the nine schools across Denver

Denver South High School students gather for a photo with their wish kid, Honey. Honey, 6, has been diagnosed with cancer and wishes to go to Disneyland.

Three-year-old Ny’lear is greeted with a giant banner at Northfield High School during the school’s Wish Week, which took place

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MAKE-A-WISH COLORADO

Page layout by the graphic design class at Lookout Mountain Youth Services

WISH

Denver East High School

Wish kid: Liam, 5, of Denver who received a liver transplant.

Liam’s wish: To go to Walt Disney World Resorts.

Wish Week: March 18-22.

Years participating: This is the first year that East has participated.

Denver South and Denver North high schools

Wish kid: Both of these schools had Honey, a 6-year-old from Denver who has been diagnosed with cancer.

Honey’s wish: To go to Disney-

land.

Wish Week: South’s Wish Week took place March 11-15, North’s Wish Week took place March 3-10.

Years participating: This is South’s fourth annual year, and North’s second time participating.

John F. Kennedy High School

Wish kid: Luna, 5, of Parker who has been diagnosed with a respiratory disorder.

Luna’s wish: To go to Disney’s Aulani Resort in Hawaii.

Wish Week: Feb. 5-9.

Years participating: This is JFK’s sixth Wish Week.

A couple of students at DSST: Cedar High School operate a fundraising booth during the school’s Wish Week, which took place April 8-12. PHOTO COURTESY OF MAKE-A-WISH COLORADO

BY RYLEE DUNN AND ELLIS ARNOLD RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA AND EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Nearly 25 years after a mass shooting plunged Columbine High School into the national consciousness, a former principal and two current teachers sat down for interviews with news reporters ahead of the tragedy’s anniversary.

Media Day, organized by the Jefferson County School District as a way to shield teachers and students from a barrage of reporters, o ered them a chance to re ect on where journalists went wrong in covering the shooting.

One frustration that still sticks in their minds: News coverage can amplify rumors and misinformation, including the narrative that the two students committed the shooting because they were bullied.

“I think a lot of times, the narrative that was given was not accurate,” said Frank DeAngelis, who served as Columbine’s principal at the time. “And unfortunately, 25 years later, that narrative is still out there.”

In the years since the attack, few events have stopped America in its tracks like that day.

e intervening years have seen school gun incidents on the rise and, in turn, a rise in the frequency in which such events are covered in the news media. And while mass school shootings haven’t necessarily become more common, they’ve taken on a higher death toll.

e way that media covers traumatic events has been debated by readers, scholars and journalists alike, but a few lessons have become clear, as highlighted by those who study coverage of shootings and by those in the Columbine community like DeAngelis: Don’t make the shooters into legends. Don’t unwittingly inspire future killings. Don’t turn the tragedy into myth and misinformation.

University of Colorado Boulder professor Elizabeth Skewes, a media scholar, posits that people have

become desensitized to news of mass shootings, and survivors and those impacted indirectly have been retraumatized.

Unfettered access to news at America’s ngertips through smartphones “can make it so that when everything feels dramatic, nothing is dramatic,” Skewes said.

“Any mass shooting is awful,” she said. “Unfortunately, we have so many that they have become almost routine.”

Shooters in the years after the 1999 attack emulated the Columbine killers. University of Connecticut assistant professor Amanda Crawford said that is partly because reporters, whether they meant to or not, glori ed the killers. She said journalists should avoid that.

“You can’t underestimate the impact of that news coverage —

of that media attention — on our larger ideas about mass shootings, about school shootings, about youth perpetrators, about this ongoing mass shooting crisis,” Crawford said.

Covering the Columbine shooting

e Columbine attack remains a singular event in the canon of mass shootings in the United States, due to a number of factors: the advent of 24-hour news, police protocols of the time period and news coverage that sensationalized the shooters, Skewes said.

“Columbine was really the rst televised mass shooting,” Skewes said, adding: “I think a lot of journalists didn’t quite know what to do, even though there had been other mass shootings to some degree.”

Skewes added that the police

protocol of the time was to assume criminals take hostages and wait, meaning that news outlets had time to mobilize to the scene but lacked concrete information — leading to rampant speculation.

“ is unfolded over hours,” Skewes said. “News organizations could be there to see it unfold and to photograph it as it unfolded too … ere was so much misinformation initially.”

John McDonald, formerly executive director of Je co School Security from 2008 to 2022, now the chief operating o cer for the Council on School Safety Leadership, said the rush to get information out led to the dissemination of faulty narratives, such as incorrect theories about the killer’s backgrounds, becoming widespread.

Tom Fildey, a graphic designer at Colorado Community Media, flips through old Columbine Community Courier newspapers from when he was an intern at the paper 1999. The newspapers include reporting and photos from his team from the day of the Columbine shooting and the weeks that followed.

PHOTO BY NINA JOSS

RESHAPING

“ e other problem with Columbine is the facts and circumstances surrounding it and the narrative out of the media was so di erent from the truth because everybody was trying to make sense of the unimaginable,” he said.

Tom Fildey, who was a senior at Evergreen High School and a photojournalism intern at Evergreen Newspapers — which published the Columbine Courier, the area’s local paper, at the time — said that while he rushed to cover the attack, radio stations provided spotty information.

“I raced down the hill, listening to the radio the whole way,” said Fildey, who now works in the production department in our newsroom, which produces two dozen metro area newspapers, including the Littleton Independent.

“No information was really becoming available; every station you listened to was telling you something di erent. It was one person or two shooters, or many shooters and the body count was three, eight, whatever. Everything was all over the place.”

Graphic images circulated widely, while cell phones enabled a urry of calls to local stations from people promising information to journalists who needed to ll airtime and newspaper pages. at included callers who told TV news stations they were on campus as the incident unfolded, according to a case study by Alicia Shepard, who wrote for the American Journalism Review. One caller who had claimed to be a student at the school turned out to have called from Utah, where he was a 25-year-old snowboarder. ings were reported “breathlessly” without being properly factchecked, Skewes said.

In the days and weeks following the shooting, some of the coverage turned toward the shooters — the cover of Time magazine shortly after the massacre and the corresponding spread centered the perpetrators, not the victims.

“All of the focus was on the shooters,” Skewes said. And “then I think as the days unfolded, there was such an attempt to explain the actions of (the shooters) by who they were —

they were goth, they were trench coats, they were this, they were that — and they were none of it.”

e portrayal of the shooters as victims of bullying, ampli ed by news coverage, may have helped inspire more killings. In his manifesto, the 2007 Virginia Tech shooter referred to the Columbine killers as martyrs.

“Shooters and attempted school shooters followed the Columbine model, so it created this social script,” said Crawford, the assistant journalism professor.

“Of the 12 documented school rampage shootings in the United States between Columbine in 1999 and the end of 2007, eight (66.7%) of the rampagers directly referred to Columbine,” Ralph Larkin of the City University of New York wrote in a 2009 study.

And of the 11 rampage shootings outside the U.S. in that time, six had direct references to the Columbine shooting, the study says.

News outlets like the Rocky Mountain News and Washington Post wrote about bullying, or a culture of mistreatment, at Columbine as a motivation for the shooting. But mental health experts from an FBI summit focused on the conclusion that one of the shooters was a psychopath, according to Dave Cullen, who wrote the book “Columbine,” an examination of the shooting. DeAngelis, Columbine’s former principal, said he viewed the socalled “basement tapes” — home videos made by the shooters — and said they talked about being “superior.”

“ e reality is that lots of people are bullied who don’t commit a mass murder, so that’s not a real answer as to why the shooting happened, right?” Crawford said.

Mass shootings by the numbers e history of modern mass school shootings in the U.S. stretches back at least to the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting, and a number of school shootings occurred in the 1990s before Columbine.

“But Columbine was really the incident that brought this phenomenon into the public consciousness,” Crawford said.

And the way news media covered the Columbine shooting likely fueled imitators.

“A lot of these shooters are trying

to become famous. For instance, even with the Las Vegas shooter, the FBI found no motive for the shooting other than a quest for infamy,” Crawford said. “Why do they think mass shootings make you famous in the media? Because it made the Columbine gunmen famous in the media.”

U.S. school gun incidents have become more frequent in the past 25 years and are now at their highest recorded levels — and school mass shootings, although not necessarily increasing in frequency, have become more deadly, according to a March 2024 study in the journal Pediatrics.

An initiative called e Violence Project, with support from the U.S. Department of Justice, created a database of mass shootings from 1966 to 2019. Some main takeaways include:

• e database spanned more than 50 years, yet 20% of the 167 mass shootings in that period occurred in the last ve years.

• e death toll has risen sharply, particularly in the last decade. In the 1970s, mass shootings claimed an average of eight lives per year. From 2010 to 2019, the end of the study period, the average was up to 51 deaths per year.

Of mass shootings in the database, about 8% occurred at a K-12 school, with about 5% happening at a college or university.

The impact of covering mass shootings e advent of smartphones has made it so that large numbers of people are noti ed when a mass shooting happens — whether it directly impacts them or not. But the rushed-out, breaking stories aren’t always the best versions of the stories. And, though news organizations have learned lessons since Columbine, initial accounts of stories can still be wrong, or triggering.

“I think slower journalism is better journalism,” Skewes said. “I teach at CU and if I get an alert on my phone that says ‘Something is happening on campus, you need to lock down’ and I’m on campus, that’s helpful information because then I know it’s a safety issue.

“But if I get an alert on my phone that is about something at (another CU campus), I can’t do anything about it,” Skewes continued. “All I can do is worry and speculate.

Skewes said she would instead prefer well-vetted information about what happened that a reporter has taken their time to discern and fact-check.

She also discussed the impact that the Columbine shooting and the mass shootings that have occurred in the wake of it may have had in creating more such events.

The front page of a Columbine Community Courier newspaper from 1999 reads “Columbine mourns its lost children” and shows a photograph of people hugging and crying. Tom Fildey, who was an intern at the paper at the time, rests his hand next to the page as he reads it.

PHOTO BY NINA JOSS

May in Denver o ers plenty of things to do. From a comedic play by the Cherry Creek eatre players to celebrating Mother’s Day with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, this month will surely keep you entertained.

A comedy for the ages

Bea and Althea navigated the ups and downs of their lives and careers arm-in-arm as best friends for 50 years. Now, as the spit re pair adjusts to senior living, they reminisce about their lives. Billie McBride and Anne Oberbroeckling star in this comical and heartwarming production by Colorado playwright Melissa Lucero McCarl, inspired by Cherry Creek eatre’s newplay reading series. “ e Heartbeat of the Sun: A Buddy Comedy for the Ages” is showing from May 3-19 at the Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center’s Mizel Art and Culture Center, 350 S. Dahlia St. in Denver. Tickets can be purchased through the MACC Box O ce by calling 303-316-6360 or sending an email to boxo ce@ jccdenver.org. To learn more about Cherry Creek eatre, visit cherrycreektheatre.org.

Celebrate MSU’s student talent at the Spring 2024 BFA Thesis Exhibition

As a celebration of, and culmination of, their undergraduate studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Studio Art and Communication Design program, 24 student artists and designers will present their thesis work in a gallery exhibition at MSU’s Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Dr., in Denver. e exhibition is on view until May 10, and is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. ese distinctive exhibitions re ect and mark the novel perspectives of these talented and strong arising artists and designers. Come out and celebrate the bright talent and explore a diverse range of artistic expression transcending the traditional and conventional norms of art and design. Learn more at msudenver.edu/cva. Photo: A crowd of people admire art during a previous BFA esis Exhibition. Photo by Jenna Miles.

Welcome Home 2024: Celebrating Unity and Empowerment

e International Rescue Committee’s annual Welcome Home fundraiser takes place from 6-8:30 p.m. May 16 at Space Gallery Denver, 400 Santa Fe Dr. e IRC is a not-for-pro t internationally headquartered in New York with its local o ce located in Denver’s Virginia Village neighborhood. is year’s Welcome Home event will feature an art exhibition and auction, a cocktail

hour and a full dinner provided by the authentic Mediterranean cuisine of Pita Fresh. ere will be opportunities to talk with Ukrainian refugee Mila Solodovnikova, whose works will invite you to experience a wonderful state of joy and contentment, and IRC’s leader Tanya Vitusagavulu and their direct service sta . Additional entertainment will be provided by Colorado singersongwriter Rebecca Folsom. Ticket prices begin at $75 and can be purchased online at www. events.rescue.org.

‘Building a Stronger Community, One Step at a Time’ Southwest Vida’s Fun Run & Walk takes place from 8 a.m. to noon at Gar eld Lake Park, 3600 W. Mississippi Ave. in Denver. Afterwards, stay to enjoy the Finish Line Fair, which will feature live performances, giveaways and opportunities to interact with local businesses and community organizations. All levels of runners and walkers are welcome and registration is free. All those joining in will receive a t-shirt, water bottle and a gift bag with coupons from local businesses. Also included is a free breakfast. Individuals, families and businesses register at southwestvida.org. A full schedule of events can also be found on this website.

Courtesy logo.

Photo: Cleo Parker Robinson. Photo by Jerry Metellus.

Photo:

COMPILED BY KATIE SALE

SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON PARK PROFILE

Denver Philharmonic Orchestra: Song and Dance

Denver Philharmonic Orchestra’s season nale will celebrate with “Song and Dance,” an upbeat, fun and “harmonious fusion that will leave you exhilarated and moved,” states its website. Pieces to be performed include selections from Gioachino Rossini, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss II and Aaron Copland. It will also feature dance choreographed by Cherry Creek Dance. e concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:15 p.m.) on May 23 on the Antonia Brico Stage

the prestigious Prix de Lausanne ballet competition in Switzerland. She has performed around the world with the Dance eatre of Harlem and has taught and coached at Oakland Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. e conversation will touch on the book, “ e Swans of Harlem,” by Karen Valby, which focuses on the forgotten story of a pioneering group of ve Black ballerinas, the rst principals in the Dance eatre of Harlem. e event takes place at 5 p.m. on May 22 at the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance eatre, 119 Park Ave. West, in Denver. e event is free to attend, but RSVPs are required. Contact lsullivan@bricfund.org for more information.

Photo: Book cover of “ e Swans of Harlem,” by Karen Valby.

man experience post-con ict.” “ e Silhouette Project: Newcomers” features the work of Dona Laurita, who captures the resilience and humanity of young immigrants. e Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1200 Lincoln St,. Ste. 111, in Denver always o ers free admission. Learn more at cpacphoto.org.

‘The Swans of Harlem’ e Black Resilience in Colorado Fund is hosting an author talk with author and ballerina Karlya Shelton-Benjamin. Shelton-Benjamin began dancing at the age of 4 and at 17, became the rst person of color to represent the U.S. in

Fundraiser for the Youth Employment Academy

e Denver Housing Authority is hosting its Wings and Whiskey event on May 19 at Ace Eat Serve, at 501 E. 17th Ave. in Denver. General admission doors open at 4 p.m. and VIP admission doors open at 3 p.m. is culinary event bene ts DHA’s Youth Employment Academy, a nonpro t that provides vulnerable youth with programming to help them achieve their educational, employment and mental health goals. Wings and Whiskey attendees will have an opportunity to enjoy unlimited samples of chicken wings from participating restaurants, including the YEA’s Osage Café. Tickets range from $70-$90. To purchase tickets and learn more about the event, visit aceeatserve.com/wings-whiskey.

Photo: Courtesy image.

‘Whiskey From Strangers’ “Whiskey From Strangers” is a live album and a Denver mythology, all in one show. is album release concert is a love letter to friendships, the ones that last a lifetime and the ones that don’t. e bandmates of Teacup Gorilla present the ups and downs of friendship. is will also be a show for the new Teacup Gorilla EP album release. e music and story are based on Miriam Suzanne’s novel, “Riding SideSaddle.” Both the album and novel will be available after the show. ere will be 10 showings, with opening night on May 10 and running through June 1. To reserve tickets, visit https://grapefruitlab.com.

Exhibits at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center

e Colorado Photographic Arts Center is presenting two exhibits that will be available from May 10-June 22. “ e Presence of Absence Art Exhibit” features New York City-based artist Inbal Abergil who “navigates the depths of hu-

Plan ahead: Historic Elitch Walking Tour with the Denver Architecture Foundation

e Denver Architecture Foundation is inviting the community to explore the historic Elitch eatre, which hosted Colorado’s rst moving picture in 1896 and entertained local audiences until its last production in 1991. e tour will include learning about how the Historic Elitch Gardens eatre Foundation is working to restore the building and help celebrate its legacy as an arts nationally renowned venue. Tickets will be available beginning on May 21, and it is expected tour slots will ll quickly. So mark your calendar for June 4 and 5 and visit the website for more information: denverarchitecture.org.

Photo: e Denver Architecture Foundation is o ering a tour of the Historic Elitch eatre in early June. Photo courtesy of the Historic Elitch eatre.

RESHAPING

“ ere’s two things they talk about in the literature: One is the contagion e ect and the other is the copycat e ect,” Skewes said. Skewes said the “contagion effect” is the noticeable increase in mass shootings in the wake of a prominent one — “a ripple e ect, if you will,” she said.  Copycat e ects typically refer to imitation of a person’s behavior, while contagion is based on the idea that behaviors can “go viral” and spread through society like diseases, according to an article in the journal American Behavioral Scientist.

McDonald said the fascination with the Columbine shooting still follows the school around, 25 years later.

“Every media story about a school shooting is a Columbine-style shooting,” McDonald said. “So, we have struggled for years to try and get o the radar and it’s a big lift. ey still come from around the world, they want to come to the school, it’s a place of fascination for people and all we want to do is educate kids.”

Less emphasis on perpetrators

At Media Day by the Je erson County School District in early April, Je Garkow, a Columbine social studies teacher who was a student at the school from 2002 to 2006, said it seems like there’s less

emphasis on perpetrators in media coverage of school shootings now, which he thinks is “hugely positive.”

DeAngelis, who served as Columbine’s principal at the time of the shooting, is glad to see more caution in news coverage of tragedies.

“Media are saying ‘we can’t conrm this,’ and they’re waiting for information,” DeAngelis said.

Sam Bowersox-Daly, another current Columbine teacher, expressed concern that today’s media coverage of shootings often becomes tied to a political issue and what politicians are doing.

“Focusing on Washington after it happens, does that take away from — these are still people,” BowersoxDaly said.

Garkow remembers the fth anniversary of the shooting, when MTV News reporters o ered to pay for Qdoba burritos if students would do an interview, he said.

“ e media was chasing kids around, like trying to corner us at lunch,” Garkow said.

DeAngelis and Christy, the current principal, both sighed with relief when asked whether Media Day helps them. DeAngelis said the phone used to ring o the hook, especially during the 20th anniversary. is year, he’d only received one call from a national reporter as of Media Day. For Christy, it’s helpful for keeping reporters away from the campus and preventing them from interrupting the school day.

‘A time for extreme sensitivity’

“Back then, it wasn’t the same as it is now,” Fildey said. “I think (journalists) bring a lot more empathy to our work (now).”

Fildey recalled being at a memorial service shortly after the massacre when a group of about 12 survivors huddled together in a moment of solidarity. In the center of the circle, a photographer lay on the ground, wide angle lens pointing up at traumatized teens.

“Great photo,” Fildey said. “But man, that’s kind of an invasion.”

Skewes is working with University of Dayton Professor Katie Alaimo on a book about media coverage of mass shootings, and said she was prompted to do so after the 2012 Aurora theater shooting.

In the immediate aftermath of that shooting, Skewes turned on the local news and saw an anchor say that out of respect for the families of the victims and survivors, the network would not talk about

the shooter unless there was some major court case and development that necessitated coverage.

“I was caught by that in the sense that I thought it made perfect sense in many ways,” Skewes said. “And then I kind of thought, ‘Well, except that if we can’t talk about the shooter, we can’t talk about the systemic failures that occurred and what prevented people from reporting concerns that they had.’”

Journalists may not want to entirely avoid a shooter’s name since it can provide a reference point for researchers and historians in the future, Crawford said.

“As someone who studies misinformation, I also recognize that if the media failed to ever identify a shooter, that could feed the inevitable conspiracy theories about these tragedies even more,” Crawford said.

But “most of the stories should not include the shooter’s name, and there is no reason to use the name repeatedly in a story,” said Crawford, who thinks the news media has gotten better about not focusing on the killers.

Despite some improvement, the media still shows up and “inundates a town” after a mass shooting, as it did covering the Columbine tragedy, Crawford said.

She advises against “endless hours of news coverage, even when there is almost no con rmed facts or new information to share. at kind of coverage serves no one and just extends the trauma of the event.”

Skewes recommends giving the families of victims time in the aftermath of shootings but keeping them in the loop about a news outlet’s future plans for coverage.

“In the immediate aftermath, or coming up on an anniversary of a shooting, is a time for extreme sensitivity,” Skewes said. “Beyond that, when you need to do these kinds of stories (about the shooter), reach out to victims’ advocacy organizations and say ‘We’re going to do this, do you want to be a part of the story?’ And if not, that’s OK.

“But we want to let you know we’re doing it so that when you see it when it comes out, you’re not surprised and you’re not caught o guard,” Skewes continued. “Give them as much of a heads up if you can, because I think there’s kind of a gut punch to picking up a paper and nding your life in it again, or seeing something on the news.”

KEEP THE HEAT IN AND THE COLD AIR OUT!

The cafe

BY NATALIE KERR

is an extension of Dry Bones, a nonprofit working

SPECIAL TO WASHINGTON PARK PROFILE

Several years ago, Robbie Goldman accompanied a young, unhoused mother to court as she was forced to give up her parental rights.

As director of spiritual and emotional formation at the nonpro t, Dry Bones, Goldman sat with her as her lawyer walked her through her options and while she wrote her statement for the court and for her son. But in her palm, the woman held a small silver coin, given to her by sta members at Dry Bones.

One side of the coin read: “you have unsurpassable worth and value,” and the other side, “you belong.” e woman turned it over and over in her hand, counting on those words to get her through the court process.

“She said, ‘ is is who you guys are, this is how I’m getting through this today,’ and I just lost it,” Goldman said. “She was holding on to something that could have been just a statement, but for her, it was a treasured idea and knowledge of who she was, no matter what happens in court.”

Brewing hope

Dry Bones is a Denver-based nonpro t that works with unhoused teens and 20-somethings on professional development and job training to give them the skills and support needed to get out of the homelessness cycle. It had a grand opening of Purple Door Co ee, 1640 Sherman St. in March — the proceeds of which fund the nonpro t’s mission.  e support the nonpro t provides runs the gamut, but includes everything from supporting a person through various court proceedings to nding a full-time job to helping someone access medical care.

e Dry Bones network originated in 2001 when Executive Director Matt Wallace and the rest of the founding team noticed the distinct need for youth job training. ey opened their rst co ee shop in Five Points in 2013 and an Englewood-based co ee roastery in 2016. e spaces serve as training grounds for Dry Bones participants as they complete their 12-month

to end youth homelessness

job readiness program.

Purple Door Co ee closed the Five Points location in 2019 and moved to its new location in Capitol Hill to be closer to Denver’s economic hub and the large population of unhoused youth in the neighborhood, though its outreach extends across the city. e menu focuses on local goods, with ethical co ee from the roastery and food from nearby vendors like Guard and Grace, Stuebens and Hinman Pie.

David Jepson is a barista at Purple Door who completed the Dry Bones program in 2015. Dry Bones stood out to him because of its dedication to consistently showing up at homeless encampments, ready to have di cult conversations and provide necessities like clean socks or toothbrushes, without an ulterior motive.

Most of the people who enter encampments are police o cers trying to break up the temporary shelters, which creates an automatic

distrust for anyone coming into those spaces, Jepson said. But the Dry Bones outreach team centers people’s needs and wants, demanding nothing in return, which proved to Jepson that those involved with Dry Bones truly want what’s best for him.

“Ostensibly I’m coming here to get a job, but you’re also coming here to change your mindset,” Jepson said.

“You trust the people you work with enough to share things, to talk about your fears, things that you might not have shared for years.”

Dry Bones calls the approach “companioning,” and operates under the notion that they are building friendship connections with people who enter the program. Friends are on equal terms, show kindness, compassion and respect towards each other, and can be life-long, Wallace said.

Companioning can include helping someone get the medical attention they need so that they don’t

otherwise medicate with something else, or helping someone access counseling and therapy. Dry Bones’ program administrator also works with each participant through barriers to employment, like outstanding warrants, addiction, housing, IDs, a social security card, a birth certi cate, etc.

Sometimes companioning just means meeting up for co ee or going bowling, Wallace added. It’s a two-way street in which both people are companions to each other through life’s ups and downs.

“We see soul to soul,” Wallace said. “I don’t see all the dirt. I don’t see all the addiction. I don’t see bad behavior. I see the best in you.”  Goldman has felt his entire life and perspective change because of companioning, he said. At some of his toughest moments, the friends he made through Dry Bones were there to support him.

David Jepson works behind the bar at Purple Door Co ee on March 28.

PHOTO BY NATALIE KERR

COFFEE

For example, after his mother passed away, Goldman got a call from Wallace’s phone, but when he picked up, it wasn’t Wallace’s voice. Rather, it was a friend, Tiny, from the program who he had only met a few months earlier. Despite everything going on in Tiny’s own life, he called to check in on Goldman and ask if there was anything he could do for him.

“It just blew me away, and that set the tone for what I knew the rest of my life was going to be,” Goldman said. “I was going to be surrounded by these folks that cared so deeply and wanted to care so deeply.”

The age gap

ough Dry Bones only recruits participants who are in their teens and 20s, it never ages out anyone in the program and will continue to be friends with them as long as that person wants it. at is often not the case for other social support systems, Jepson said. When someone turns 30, many program quali cations get much more challenging to ful ll, and a person who has been experiencing homelessness or unemployment for years may decide to ultimately give up after too many setbacks.

Jepson has witnessed it rsthand

as friends of his turned 30 and the well of compassion that people had for them when they were younger dries up. It’s one of the reasons he thinks it’s vital that programs like Dry Bones help pull people out of poverty cycles while they’re still young.

“We have to stay ahead of that shelf life of people who decide, incorrectly in most cases, that this person is out of time,” Jepson said.

“We want to do everything in our power to help people come back

into their own before the rest of the

e most recent State of Homelessness report from the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which came out in 2023, identi ed 14,439 unhoused individuals during its 2022 Point in Time Count — though it estimates the true number could be as high as 134,197, based on the number of individuals without stable housing covered by Medicaid.

In the past decade, chronic homelessness — experiencing

homelessness for at least a year or in repeated instances while living with a disabling condition — in Colorado increased by 150%. Between 2022-2023 alone, overall homelessness statewide increased by 39%. is placed Colorado as the state with the fourth-largest percentage increase in the country, according to the report. Youth age 24 and younger accounted for 21% of the total homeless population in 2023, but in 2022, the 35-44 age group had the highest percentage of people experiencing homelessness at 22.8%.

Many of the people Goldman has met never accessed support systems, even by the time they were 30. When they try for the rst time at that age, they often nd they are already too old, he said.

If they did work with a system like foster care or the healthcare system, they often had a negative experience, which leads them to not want to work with any systematic aid ever again, Goldman said. Dry Bones has found it challenging to get youth to follow through on accessing aid, even when they need it and have started the process towards achieving it.

“ ey weren’t able to follow through with what was required,” Goldman said. “ ere were multiple steps, and their lives are in such disarray, that if they made the rst appointment, the second appointment just didn’t happen.”

Matt Wallace, executive director of Dry Bones, sits in front of Purple Door Co ee products in the cafe on March 28.

PHOTO BY NATALIE KERR

COFFEE

If people can be reached before they gain that distrust or before other people write them o as a lost cause because of their age, people can have a slightly easier time making meaningful changes to their lives, Jepson said.

“When you’re younger, there’s still that deeper psychological sense that ‘oh this person is going through something, that’s tragic, I want them to change.’ at compassion is still there,” Jepson said. “We can use that compassion to help people get out.”

Mental health, housing and co ee

For Jepson, Wallace and Goldman, the resources needed to cure and prevent future homelessness come to mind immediately: mental health care and a ordable housing.

Poor mental health is the underlying factor of so many other problems, Jepson said. When people can’t access a psychiatrist, they turn to the only other source they know.

“I need medication, and that guy on the corner, he’s got something that can help and I can get it from him for far cheaper,” Jepson said. “If you don’t see any other way ... you’re going to give that guy $15.”

Goldman often sees cases of misdiagnosed or untreated PTSD and ADHD in people who come to Dry Bones, he said. Many of the children they meet have never been to a pediatrician.

Dry Bones connects participants with psychiatrists and therapists,

but ultimately, a nonpro t can only serve so many people.

“Mental health care from birth to 18 is almost non-existent,” Goldman said. “If we could bring in more professionals that weren’t just trying to x one or two things, but are there for whatever general knowledge and experience and trust building is needed, that would change people’s lives.”

People experiencing homelessness often don’t have the support network of family and friends to talk to about their struggles, give advice or take them to a physician or therapist, Wallace said.

Dry Bones tries to ll that gap by providing “support under and support alongside.” So many other approaches to addressing homelessness — such as law enforcement and jails — are “power over,” Wallace said. But placing infrastructure underneath someone and walking alongside them through their journey gives them the tools to nd self-con dence and a sense of selfworth, Wallace added.

“I’ve got a college degree, I slept well last night, I took a shower this morning and I ate three good meals yesterday. So I’m in good condition right now to think with you and alongside you, to help you make decisions and see yourself di erently than you’re able to see yourself right now,” Wallace said.

But even with this support, people are facing the same housing issues that so many other Denver residents are, Wallace said. People can’t a ord housing on minimum wage jobs, and there is not enough housing aid to help everyone who needs it.

Colorado is the eighth most expensive state to rent or purchase a house in, e Colorado Sun reported. Denver’s cost of living index is 128.7, compared to the national average of 100, meaning goods and services are about 29% more expensive in Colorado than in the rest of the country, according to the Denver Relocation Guide.

e median rent for a one bedroom apartment in Denver is $2,000, according to the Denver Re-

location Guide. Someone making Denver’s minimum wage of $18.29 would have to work 109 hours just to a ord rent, which doesn’t include utilities, food, medication and other basic needs. is means a person who works a fulltime job of 40 hours per week — roughly 160 hours per month — is using nearly two-thirds of the wages from hours worked per month on rent alone.

SEE COFFEE, P21

Purple Door Co ee’s proceeds support the Dry Bones program, which helps youth experiencing homelessness find employment and become self-su cient. PHOTO BY NATALIE KERR

COFFEE

Understandably, encampments forming across the city are frustrating residents, Wallace said. But people are taking it out on the people who can’t escape the homelessness cycle, rather than the factors leading them to be unhoused.

“I get it, but you have to have a perspective shift to go, ‘something is unhealthy community-wide,’” Wallace said. “It’s not just about that person’s tent in my front yard. ere’s something deeper and bigger going on, and it’s going to take a shift in consciousness.”

Even when someone does nd stable housing or employment, their background can lead them to being tokenized or mistreated. At Dry Bones’ former location in Five Points, people would come in and try to guess if any of the baristas behind

the bar were formerly unhoused, or would at out ask the workers if they were homeless, Jepson said.

Purple Door Co ee is not meant to be a place that puts people going through chronic challenges on display. It is meant to be a part of the solution that anyone can contribute to, simply by purchasing a cup of co ee, Wallace said.

When people come into the cafe, Wallace wants them to feel hopeful and empowered to create positive change. e Purple Door logo represents the passageway of opportunity that Dry Bones creates for people. ose people have to be willing to walk through it of their own volition, but the door will never close, Wallace said.

“ at opportunity never goes away. It’s always there, and you just didn’t choose to accept it on that particular day,” Jepson said. “But we’ll leave the light on for you, and when you’re ready, we’ll still be here to guide you back in.”

The lights in the Purple Door Co ee cafe, located in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, are designed to reflect the organization’s logo, which represents a passageway for opportunity.

PHOTO BY NATALIE KERR

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15% off Total Purchase*

* This offer is valid for homeowners over 18 years of age. The following persons are not eligible for this offer: employees of Leafguard or affiliated companies or entities, their immediate family members, previous participants in a Company in-home consultation within the past 12 months and all current and former Company customers. Previous/future purchases are not eligible for a discount or sale price adjustment. Sales tax does not qualify for discount. This offer cannot be combined with any other sale, promotion, discount, code, coupon and/or offer. This promotion has no cash value. Leafguard reserves the right to end any promotion at any time without notice. Offer ends 5/31/24.

*All participants who attend an estimated 60-90-minute in-home product consultation will receive a $50 Visa gift card. Retail value is $50. Offer sponsored by Leafguard Holdings Inc. Limit one per household. Company procures, sells, and installs seamless gutter protection. This offer is valid for homeowners over 18 years of age. If married or involved with a life partner, both cohabitating persons must attend and complete presentation together. Participants must have a photo ID and be legally able to enter into a contract. The following persons are not eligible for this offer: employees of Company or affiliated companies or entities, their immediate family members, previous participants in a Company in-home consultation within the past 12 months and all current and former Company customers. Gift may not be extended, transferred, or substituted except that Company may substitute a gift of equal or greater value if it deems it necessary. Gift card will be mailed to the participant via first class United States Mail within 10 days of receipt of the promotion form. Not valid in conjunction with any other promotion or discount of any kind. Offer not sponsored and is subject to change without notice prior to reservation. Except in the states of MD, NY and DC, where the gift card offer is limited to $25. Offer not available in the states of CA, IN,

WISH

DSST: Cedar High School

Wish kid: Foster, a 7-year-old from Denver who has been diagnosed with cancer.

Foster’s wish: To go to Walt Disney World Resorts and meet Darth Vader.

Years participating: This is Cedar’s first year to participate.

Wish Week: April 8-12.

George Washington High School and DSST: College View School

Wish kid: Both of these schools had Ke’Zon, a 6-year-old from Aurora who has a kidney disease.

Ke’Zon’s wish: To go to Walt Disney World Resorts

Wish Week: George Washington’s Wish Week took place March 11-15, and College View’s took place April 29-May 3.

Years participating: This is the

first year George Washington has participated, and the third year for College View.

Thomas Jefferson High School

Wish kid: Haven, 7, of Pueblo who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Haven’s wish: To meet Mickey Mouse at Walk Disney World Resorts.

Wish Week: Feb. 5-9.

Years participating: This is Thomas Jefferson’s first year to participate.

Northfield High School

Wish kid: Ny’lear, a 3-year-old from Aurora who has been diagnosed with cancer.

Ny’lear’s wish: To go to Walk Disney World.

Wish Week: Feb. 26-March 1.

Years participating: Northfield has participated in Wish Weeks since 2021.

To learn more about Make-A-Wish Colorado, visit https://wish.org/colorado.

BATHROOM REMODELING DONE

Denver North High School had a restaurant giveback night at Little Man Ice Cream during its Wish Week, March 3-10, during which some of the student employees donated all of their tips and wages to the e ort, in addition to the restaurant’s giveback.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAKE-A-WISH COLORADO