Denver's 150 Unsung Heroes

 

Will Adams

Adams is the executive director and former chairman of Rocky Mountain Arts Association, the parent organization for the Denver Gay Men's Chorus and Out Loud: the Colorado Springs Men's Chorus.

After volunteering for many years, he left the corporate world to work full time for the nonprofit. In the last year, Adams created and launched Mosaic Youth Chorus, which welcomes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth and their straight allies, ages 14 to 20.

The chorus provides a safe place for these young people to be themselves. Last July, Mosaic Youth Chorus traveled to Miami, joining nearly 5,000 chorus members from other choruses around the world in a weeklong festival celebrating music, culture and community.

 

Rosalinda Aguirre

The community involvement of the co-owner of Rosalinda's Mexican Café spans 25 years and has made her a fixture in Northwest Denver.

Rosalinda's, in Denver's Highlands neighborhood, has provided free holiday meals to the homeless and continues to support various community organizations each year. Aguirre serves as co-chairwoman and supports Padres Unidos, a parent organization serving northwest Denver.

Her efforts have earned her a variety of honors, including: City and County of Denver Unsung Hero Award, the Mayor's Latino Advisory Community Award and the Martin Luther King Jr. Business and Social Responsibility Award.

 

Linda Alston

Alston says teaching "chose me. It is a divine calling upon my life." A public school teacher for almost 30 years, Alston, through her work, has motivated five parents of her students to complete their education and become teachers.

Although she teaches kindergartners reading, science and other subjects, she also teaches her students to serve high tea in the classroom. The 5-year-olds serve spicy teas, cucumber sandwiches, chocolate-dipped strawberries, scones and chocolates and engage guests in conversation about topics such as global warming. They wash the fine china, crystal and linen. Alston uses this ritual to teach social graces and courtesy.

Alston's service is not limited to the classroom. She also has served on the board of directors of Family Star Montessori Schools, helping turn a former crack house in northeast Denver into a Montessori center. She also volunteers to feed Denver's homeless. An international education consultant and public speaker, she visited Sierra Leone in West Africa as a Fulbright Scholar.

Her professional awards include: the first ever Kipp/Kinder $100,000 Excellence in Teaching Award, Dr. Albert C. Yates Educator Award and Walt Disney American Teacher Award. She recently published her first book, Why We Teach: Learning, Laughter, Love and the Power to Transform Lives.

 

Sueann Ambron

The dean of the Business School at the University of Colorado oversees the largest graduate school of business in the Rocky Mountain region, with more than 2,500 students. Recently, Ambron helped launch the Business School's publication Business Driven Information Technology: Answers to 100 Critical Questions for Every Manager, published by Stanford University Press.

Ambron serves on the board of advisers for the Downtown Denver Partnership, the Denver Metro Foundation, the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences School of Medicine. Before her appointment, Ambron was founder and chief executive officer of Avulet, a network software company.

 

Jerry Arca

As co-chairman of the Community Improvement District Working Group, Arca worked with local neighborhood and business organizations to create a new tool for Denver's mixed-use neighborhoods.

Recently, he led the volunteer program to welcome and provide directions to visitors for the Downtown Denver Host Committee for the Democratic National Convention. He recruited more than 150 volunteers and was on the street daily during the convention. In his neighborhood, he has served as president of the St. Charles Neighborhood Group and the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association.

Arca was a founding partner in Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret, which opened in the historic D&F Tower in 2006. Working in partnership with his wife, Betty, Arca opened The Wizard's Chest in Cherry Creek North in 1981, and the couple operated it for 22 years.

 

Marilyn Auer

Auer provides a home for fine literature as publisher and editor of The Bloomsbury Review, an idea and book review magazine that began in the 1970s.

Auer's work has helped Denver garner a worldwide reputation as a place that supports the literary arts: poetry, fiction and nonfiction.

The Denver native's love of books grew from many trips as a child to the Eugene Field Library in Washington Park. When her brother Tom founded the Review, she began as a graphic designer. After his untimely death, she took over the operation, from business to overseeing an annual batch of interns from around the country.

 

Mary Baca

Baca's volunteer work during 50-plus years has had a positive impact on thousands, in areas ranging from health to housing and employment. She also has been involved with the arts, as a trustee for the Denver Symphony Orchestra, and served on numerous boards, including Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Mile High United Way and the Denver Foundation.

Baca, who worked as a commissioner for the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, got started in volunteering with Head Start, then helped found the Hall of Life and Children's Museum. A tireless advocate for adolescent health, through her contributions as a founding member of the Denver School-Based Clinics, she helped bring comprehensive health services to Denver high schools and took the program to a national level.

 

Kathy Bacon

The executive director of the nonprofit Dress for Success Denver provides business clothing and career guidance for impoverished women.

Bacon brought Dress for Success back to Denver after a previous incarnation closed due to mismanagement. She schedules client appointments with social service agencies, raises money and awareness, obtains clothing donations, recruits volunteers and board members, and handles public relations. Only recently, were funds available to hire a staff member.

As part of the services DFS offers women transitioning from poverty to the workplace, Bacon directed the launch of the Professional Women's Group that mentors and encourages disadvantaged women new to the workplace. The nonprofit now serves 1,200 local women annually and is poised for continued growth.

 

John Bailey

"John Bailey saves lives," says NBA star Chauncey Billups when asked about Bailey's impact on his life and others through the Joint Effort Youth Program.

Thousands of young athletes have profited from Joint Effort, where they can compete at the highest level, learn from competent, caring adults and forge meaningful relationships.

Attending one of Bailey's pro-am evenings at Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center, you might find as many as 50 athletes, 100 or so spectators from the neighborhood and competitive games with a level of intensity as high as the sportsmanship.

Billups credits Bailey as a major influence in his life while he was growing up in the often tumultuous neighborhoods of North Park Hill, which is why Billups returns each summer to sponsor and participate.

 

Brad Bates

The chief executive officer of Hope Communities works to bring decent, affordable housing to the Denver market. Hope Communities has become one of the largest affordable housing developers in the city, with 350 rental homes and 15 for-sale properties in 2008.

Bates is fond of saying that his work is his "mission," his pulpit the urban buildings that, once renovated into suitable housing, can transform the lives of families in need. His most recent development, The Residences at 39th & Adams, consists of 10 newly constructed single-family homes being sold at a fraction of the market cost to allow low-income families to begin building equity.

Hope Communities' affordable rental developments help more than 1,400 people each year. The majority of the rental residents live on less than $20,000 annually and have an average household of three people. Without affordable housing, these families might be forced to choose between paying the rent, putting food on the table and getting medical care for their children.

When Bates served as executive director with a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Connecticut, the affiliate received the Pioneers in Excellence award, the highest honor a Habitat for Humanity affiliate can receive.

 

Gladys Noel Bates

Bates was selected as the plaintiff by the NAACP in a 1948 suit against the Mississippi State School Board for equal pay for black faculty. Shortly after the suit was filed, she and her husband, another teacher, were fired and blacklisted from teaching in the state. Shots were fired through the windows of their home, which was later burned down.

After three years and two appeals, the case reached the Supreme Court, which declined to rule on it. Despite the loss in the courts, there was a moral victory, as salaries slowly moved toward parity in the state.

A brother in Denver persuaded the couple to move here in 1960 and apply for work at Denver Public Schools, an integrated system; they were hired immediately. Gladys Bates began her new life as a science teacher at Baker Junior High and her husband, John, became a shop instructor at Manual High School.

The Colorado Education Association gave its first human relations award to the couple and named it after them. Greater Park Hill Community Inc. gave them the Babbs Award for 20 years of service to the North East Park Hill Community Association and the Greater Park Hill Community. This was also in recognition for their work to prevent riots in Park Hill after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Robbie Bean

The retired Denver Public Schools teacher has volunteered in many ways, but her main focus is on families. Each year since 1998, she has organized a committee of neighbors, church members and friends to put on a ceremony attended by nearly 1,000 people to celebrate families.

She honors students and families for their contribution to their school, block or community. People honored are of all colors, ages and faiths; public school students and private or charter school students; people from northeast Denver and people from southwest Denver; from southeast Denver and northwest Denver.

Bean raises money from a variety of sources to support the prizes and plaques, food and location rental — or just uses her own money if necessary. She was honored with the 2000 Mary McLeod Bethune Award by the Denver Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women.

 

Richard Bell

The chairman of Gates Corp. leads a company founded in Denver that will celebrate its centennial in 2011 as one of Colorado's leading global companies. Though a native of Scotland, Bell has called Denver home since 1996. Since becoming a U.S. resident, he has been a dedicated contributor to the business, civic and cultural community.

Gates recommitted to Denver by moving the company's world headquarters, along with its 700-plus associates, to Lower Downtown after 88 years on South Broadway. The company's new home, at 1551 Wewatta St., addresses energy conservation through an onsite recycling/composting program; he also supports and encourages associates' use of mass-transit alternatives.

In 2005, Bell helped create the Gates Sculpture Garden, adjacent to its offices. Through collaboration between Gates, RTD and the city, the garden features a mixture of grasses studied for their urban growth characteristics and rotating sculptural displays.

Bell is on the board of Denver Botanic Gardens and has maintained corporate support for the Young American's Center for Financial Education and the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, which honored the company with its Philanthropy Award in 2007.

 

Jan Marie Belle

With organizational skills, passion and $38,000 of her own money, Belle helped establish the nonprofit SouthWest Improvement Council in 1987 so residents in the low-income Westwood neighborhood could tackle problems themselves.

Belle knocked on doors and made phone calls resulting in 300 volunteers. Belle assigned jobs and set up 50 block captains to keep residents informed. Urban Gleaners gathered discarded building materials for volunteer craftsmen to use in improving homes. Youthful Yardbirds cleaned yards and alleys and made sure trash was hauled away. Snow Patrols shoveled sidewalks of those unable to. Friendly Visitors offered companionship to the homebound.

SWIC leaders decided not to charge dues so everyone could participate and have a voice in decisions. Belle sought funds from grants, fund raisers and contributions by individuals and businesses.

 

W. Bart Berger

The chairman of the Colorado Historical Society is passionate about history and outdoor education. In 2004, he continued a family tradition of civic involvement with the founding of the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation.

Berger recognized that the series of 57 properties (covering more than 14,000 acres in four counties) owned by Denver's citizens since 1912 had fallen into disrepair. So Berger gathered a group of citizens to form the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation.

The foundation's work has resulted in increased awareness on the part of the city council, the mayor's office and other members of the foundation community. Funding provided for restoration projects in Daniels Park, and demographic data collection about the users of the parks has laid the foundation for the creation of a master plan for the Mountain Parks system.

The avid historian and open-space advocate also has served on the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission and was chairman of the board of the Friends of Historic Fort Logan.

 

Lacey Berumen

Berumen left a private-sector job to work as the executive director of the Colorado chapter of the National Association for the Mentally Ill. As a result, she had to find a part-time job to make ends meet.

In recent years, she has testified before legislators and provided education to state, local and nonprofit groups about working with the mentally ill. These actions have resulted in changes to the law and greater understanding of mental illness.

Berumen is also a faculty member at the University of Phoenix, board member for New Horizons, a former board member for Hearts of Fire, a Lakota mission team member, a PTA member and an alumnae of Regis University and Americorps.

 

Joan Birkland

Denver-born Birkland has been blessed with remarkable athletic talent, excelling in tennis, golf and basketball. As an adult, she twice held the state golf and tennis titles simultaneously.

For almost 20 years, she has been the executive director of Sportswomen of Colorado. The group annually recognizes hundreds of the state's female athletes, as well as women who have exhibited excellence through their contributions to sports and coaching.

A member of both the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame and Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, she also serves on their boards. In addition, she serves on volunteer boards for groups such as the U.S. Golf Association Women's Committee, First Data Corp. Colorado Open and the National Girls and Women in Sports.

 

Carl Bourgeois

Bourgeois is a co-founder of Civil Technology, a construction-management and real estate development firm that has established itself as a trusted advocate of Denver's Five Points.

For the last eight years, the company has organized and promoted the Jazzy 4th of July festival in Five Points. Entertainers at the event have included Hugh Masekela, Jonathan Butler, Najee, Norman Brown and Pieces of a Dream.

The company founded by Bourgeois and Sheila King has received numerous honors, including the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce 2005 Business of the Year award, Downtown Denver Partnership's 2006 Business of the Year award and the 2007 Martin Luther King Social Responsibility award.

 

Matt Brady

When Brady moved into the North Lincoln public housing project in 1982, the 1950s-vintage buildings were in a downward spiral. He helped lead presentations to various city and federal groups, which resulted in approval in 1993 to tear the old housing down.

The new South Lincoln Park public housing facility was completed in 1996. As a member of the economic development group NEWSED's board, Brady worked to get a new senior addition for La Alma Recreation Center.

A crime victim himself, including two emergency-room trips, Brady has firsthand knowledge of inner-city problems. So when Lincoln Park crime ranked in the top three of Denver neighborhoods during the 1980s, Brady worked to secure grants, with help from the Denver Police Department and other agencies, to get the neighborhood out of the top 10.

 

Fred Brockmeyer

Brockmeyer has dedicated more than 14 years to Project Angel Heart, a nonprofit that provides free, nutritious, home-delivered meals to those living with life-threatening illnesses.

Brockmeyer became acquainted with Project Angel Heart when some of his neighbors were battling illnesses and struggling to make basic ends meet; many of these neighbors relied on Project Angel Heart.

When a close friend whom he regularly assisted died from an illness, Brockmeyer began volunteering during the organization's third year of operation. He quickly became one of the group's most dependable drivers.

Brockmeyer, 69, also is an ambassador for the organization's fundraiser, Dining Out for Life. He enlisted one of his favorite restaurants, Club 404, and since then it has placed in the top 10 for donations annually. (In 2008, Club 404 finished No. 1.)

 

Molly Broeren

Broeren came to Denver from Chicago for college and never left. After earning a degree in special education from Loretto Heights College, she worked for Denver Public Schools.

She moved into the retail business and in 1981 bought a shop in the Brown Palace that she named Molly's at the Brown. In 1988, she expanded and moved the store, now called Molly's of Denver, to the Equitable Building.

Broeren has served on countless Downtown Denver Partnership boards, committees and task forces starting in 1991, when she was named the Downtown Denver Partnership Volunteer of the Year.

 

David Burgess

Burgess was one of the mental health professionals who joined with mentally ill consumers to create the unusual nonprofit partnership between Health Empowerment and Advocacy for a Richer Tomorrow, or HEART, and Capitol Hill Action and Recreation Group, or CHARG.

In 1990, Burgess became the first and so far, only executive director of CHARG Resource Center, which is in a legal partnership with the HEART board. CHARG is the only psychiatric clinic in the country directly answerable to a board composed entirely of mentally ill consumers.

CHARG is predicated on the belief that men- tal health professionals must work in partnership with mental health consumers for the consumers' treatment and recovery to be most successful.

 

Charlie Burrell

As a musician and a mentor, the 88-year-old contrabass player continues to make an invaluable contribution to Denver's cultural landscape. Burrell has had a distinguished career here as a member of the Denver Symphony Orchestra and a leader in the jazz community.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, before growing up in Detroit, Burrell, at 12, decided he would become the first black musician to perform in the San Francisco Symphony after listening to a live performances on the radio. He realized the dream 28 years later.

Burrell set a musical standard of excellence for himself and then helped others reach it, including his mentoring of young family members George Duke and Dianne Reeves to their own successful careers.

 

Carl Clark

Clark has been a driving force behind expanding services to children and adults in Denver as the CEO of the nonprofit Mental Health Center of Denver, which provides services to more than 11,000 people annually.

The center was recognized by the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare with its 2005 Community Provider of Excellence Award and with the 2006 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Business Social Responsibility Award.

Under Clark's guidance, MHCD helped create the Court to Community partnership, which has helped reduce overcrowding in courts and jails, and the Denver Criminal Justice Initiative, which helped reduce arrests and jail time for people with mental illness. Working with Denver's Road Home, MHCD helps get homeless men and women with mental illness off the streets and into treatment and housing.

 

Todd Clough

Clough has been involved in Denver's nonprofit community for the last 30 years. At the Children's Museum of Denver, he worked his way up from a college intern to executive director.

During his 20 years at Denver Inner City Parish, he started as a board member, then served as principal/head of school for 18 years at La Academia. He now oversees the entire Denver Inner City Parish as executive director, including a food bank and a variety of other services for low-income families.

"Todd has been an integral part of the Denver community, the Latino community struggle and the West Side," says activist Nita J. Gonzales. "His commitment to our children's education and community efforts that empower individuals and families is what sets him above others in his field."

 

John Cohen

A professor in the department of immunology at University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center combines the keen mind of a researcher with the skill of a master teacher.

CU Mini Med School, started by Cohen in 1989, presents in lecture form to the public an overview of what first-and second- year medical students learn, improving the way they communicate with their physicians.

Starting in one classroom, Mini Med now fills the IMAX Theater in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Similar programs are being developed in 70 schools in the U.S, Canada and Europe.

Cohen also started the Denver Café Scientifique, which brings scientists working on cutting-edge research to the public in the relaxed setting of the Wynkoop Brewery. The scientists present an overview of their work and then lead a discussion. Ten times a year around 200 people, from school kids to retirees, attend.

Cohen's students have voted him an Excellence in Teaching award every year from 1982 to 2001.

 

Megan Colvin

Colvin has participated in the Ambassadors of Hope program, which invites students to become involved in social justice and human rights activism, as well Peace Jam, which brings Nobel Peace laureates to share their work with today's youth.

Colvin helped present long-term goals and commitments for the Denver Mayor's Youth Executive Committee and Child/Youth Friendly Cities. Colvin also participates in the Youth Crime Watch of America Conference and Assets for Colorado Youth Conference.

At Kennedy High School, Colvin participates in leadership programs, consisting of a core group of student leaders who plan school and community service events. She organized a holiday card drive, collecting and delivering more than 3,000 cards to troops overseas, participated with Meals on Wheels and does yard work for elderly citizens in her Denver neighborhood.

 

Stella Cordova

In 1967, Cordova was a cook at the Chubby Burger Drive-In, at 1231 West 38th Ave., when the owner said he wanted to get out of the business. He cut Cordova — then making 85 cents an hour — a deal so she could buy it.

She kept the name but changed the menu to feature the Mexican food she'd grown up with in Walsenburg. Chubby's quickly became known for its hot, hot green chile.

Soon, assorted offspring (Cordova had 10 children) and their offspring began opening their own Chubby's restaurants, with or without their mom's blessing. But today, 40 years after Cordova opened her own place, the original remains open, and you occasionally can find Cordova, 98, still working.

 

Charlie Cousins

When Cousins attended Manual High School in 1936, white students had dances in the gym with a good sound system, while the black students used a wrestling practice room with padded walls.

"I rigged up a sound system and got the principal to agree to let me use it for our dances," said Cousins. "It got so popular that I started renting out (the sound system) to others for $1.50 a night."

And so began his long career in the jukebox industry. When white-owned jukebox businesses tried to take over the restaurants and bars where his machines were located, Cousins bought the buildings. And so began his long career in real estate; he now owns more than 30 buildings in Five Points, ranging from a bank to a bar.

The city recognized his devotion to Five Points by naming a plaza outside the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library after him.

 

Jane Craft

This whirlwind in the Washington Park community has served for 30 years on the board at the Washington Street Community Center and was the first woman elected the board's chairman.

During that time, she taught second grade in Denver Public Schools and was instrumental in starting the Arts in the Schools program and Arts Are Fundamental. She served on the Mayor's Advisory Committee for 10 years, chairing Community Block Grants and performing other duties.

As senior programs director for the last 19 years at the Washington Street center, she supervises 58 RTD and charter trips every year, taking busloads of seniors to museums or to Georgetown for the Christmas Festival. She organizes the food program, including Tuesday and Wednesday luncheons, plus plays and more. Craft established a store at the center with secondhand and new items so seniors could replenish their wardrobes inexpensively.

The center honored her by creating the Jane Craft Washington Park Good Neighbor Award to honor worthy recipients annually.

 

Joe Craft

Now in his 51st year with Denver Public Schools, Craft has shared a passion for theater with his many students.

While on the staff at the Jewish Community Center, he taught classes, directed productions and consulted on the design and construction of Shwayder Theatre. As a founding member of the Committee for the School of the Arts, he worked with others starting in 1980 to establish the school in 1991. Recently, one of the school's theaters was named for him. One of his greatest achievements is founding the Denver Public Schools Shakespeare Festival, which has brought national recognition to Denver. Twenty-four years ago, it began with 200 students; now, 4,000 students from 85 schools are involved, with others on a waiting list hoping to be a part of this year's 25th anniversary.

He has consulted with other cities, including San Diego, that now stage festivals, and Denver has been designated as the national demonstration site for the festival by the U.S. Department of Education.

 

Dana Crawford

Crawford pioneered the redevelopment of Larimer Street in the 1960s, creating a festival shopping area from the neglected buildings of Denver's original street. Today, Larimer Square serves as a prototype for the revitalization of forgotten urban landscapes.

Since the '60s, Crawford has redeveloped more than 800,000 square feet of historic property in Denver, including the Oxford Hotel, Acme Lofts, Edbrooke Lofts and Cooper Flats Condominiums. She completed Phase One of the Flour Mill Lofts project, converting an abandoned flour mill into loft spaces.

Crawford, a nationally recognized leader in urban redevelopment, now is in partnership with her son Jack, developing Prospect Park, a mixed-use, master planned village in the Central Platte Valley.

 

Isetta Crawford-Rawls

Since the 1960s, Crawford-Rawls has written news and feature articles for neighborhood newspapers and performed readings.

Her first writing of note, The Negro in Early Colorado, covers black people in Colorado from the earliest explorers until World War II. It was redrafted for a 1971 KRMA public TV series, Black: Then and Now.

She was one of the original associates of Rocky Mountain Women's Institute in 1976 and a founder of the Kwanzaa Committee of Denver in 1981, a cultural, educational and literary community organization. She has volunteered at a wide variety of groups, ranging from the Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission to Denver Black Arts Festival.

 

Carl Crookham

Over the course of three decades, Crookham created and led South Platte River Environmental Education, an outdoor-education program focused on the South Platte River.

The award-winning learning experience better-known as SPREE has brought tens of thousands of Denver children, from kindergarten through high school, to the parks, trails and waters of the South Platte.

Grade-specific field trips help students learn the history of the river that helped give birth to the Mile High City, how the city turned its back on its heritage and, during the 1970s, began to reclaim this resource.

The program results in a citizen-based "support group" that helps ensure that the ignorance of the past will never return.

 

Noel Cunningham

Cunningham has dual careers: chef and philanthropist.

The native of Ireland moved to Denver in the 1980s and opened Strings on 17th Avenue, which remains a popular destination. In 1989, he and a partner opened 240 Union in Lakewood.

Then, there's the Cunningham Foundation, started in 2003, which has raised nearly $250,000 for Project Mercy, an effort by the chef and his wife, Tammy, to improve living conditions in Ethiopia.

He's also on the board of Share Our Strength, an organization of restaurateurs that helps the hungry worldwide. And Cunningham and Pat "Gabby Gourmet" Miller started Taste of the Nation 17 years ago. It has since raised more than $50 million toward ending hunger and poverty.

 

Alicia Daigler

As the school social worker at the Academy of Urban Learning, Daigler interacts with young people, ages 15 to 21, and their families to help the students earn a high school diploma.

Because so many of the academy's students are homeless or nearly so, the work that Daigler does helps to keep the students off the street, fed (by the academy's mini food bank) and healthy, and helps their families.

Daigler also works with the students' support systems — extended families, families of choice, foster parents, case workers, probation officers, doctors — to figure out ways to support them and bring more love and understanding to their lives.

 

Arzella Dirksen

Dirksen has been a stalwart volunteer with Denver Urban Gardens since the organization's beginning more than 20 years ago and has served in every volunteer capacity, including as a garden leader, office helper, mentor, fundraiser and board member. As a charter member of the Healthy Neighborhoods Network, she's also working with DUG to extend the benefits of community gardening locally.

DUG assists with the creation and management of more than 80 metro-area community gardens. Primarily serving low-to moderate-income populations, the nonprofit provides opportunities for participants to supplement their diet with fresh produce.

As the garden leader for the Cook Park Garden for 23 years, she's helped oversee 60 community garden plots that provide that community a place to grow food and strengthen neighborhood ties. As a DUG board member for the last six years, Dirksen has been part of the effort to increase, by nearly 40 percent, the number of community gardens in the metro area.

 

Marcia Donziger

The creator of MyLifeLine.org wants to make a difference in the lives of cancer patients, their families and friends by providing a Web site that allows them to share updates in one place.

A cancer survivor, Donziger understands what it means to be diagnosed, undergo treatments and still have to be present to answer the questions of concerned family and friends.

The California native moved to Denver in 2002 to be with her fiance. Thanks to a surrogate mother, the couple now have twin boys. Today, Donziger is a full-time mom who uses "naptime" to work on MyLifeLine.

 

Sandy Douglas

The 24-year Cole neighborhood resident helped found its neighborhood association in 1999 and was integral in getting the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up contamination caused by old smelting plants in the Cole, Clayton and Elyria Swansea neighborhoods under the Superfund program.

Douglas was instrumental in launching the Central Denver Community Court and in developing the concept of restorative justice for youth offenders. For the duration of the court's existence, from 2003 to 2007, she managed the Youth Opportunity and Community Advocacy programs. Douglas also operates the Youth Development Partnership, a mentoring and leadership program, out of her home.

Douglas is also the outreach coordinator for the Denver Art Museum, connecting with underserved communities.

 

Tom Downey

Downey has increased attendance and identified long-term objectives for the museum in his three years as president of the Children's Museum of Denver.

Downey believes that the museum must be accessible to all children, and under his leadership, the museum now provides 30 percent of all memberships free to qualified families in need and has provided increased outreach to Title I schools in the Denver Public School system.

Downey's influence extends beyond the museum. He spent eight years on the board for the Colorado Children's Campaign, leading initiatives to improve access to health care and education for all children. Recently, he was elected chairman of the Colorado Nonprofit Association and has served on Mayor John Hickenlooper's Leadership Team for Early Childhood Education since its inception.

 

Sue Dunn

Dunn has worked for more than 20 years with Donor Alliance, the federally designated organ-procurement organization for Colorado and most of Wyoming. Their mission: to save lives through organ and tissue donation.

Dunn, who has served as the Denver-based alliance's president and chief executive officer since 2004, has led numerous efforts to improve Denver and Colorado's organ-and tissue-transplantation process, as well the nation's.

She was a driving force behind the 2007 approval of the Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in Colorado's legislature, which aims to increase the number of organ transplants in Colorado.

In 2007, Donor Alliance helped provide organs to 312 patients across the country and saw a 26 percent increase in tissue donors over 2006.

 

Ed Dwight

Dwight's résumé lists a string of accomplishments: Air Force test pilot, America's first black astronaut trainee, computer systems engineer, aviation consultant, restaurateur, real estate developer, construction entrepreneur.

One title might say it all: "Renaissance man." For the past 25 years, though, Dwight has focused his energy on fine art and sculpture projects.

Since his art career began in 1976, Dwight has become one of most prolific and insightful sculptors in America.

His works can be found in a variety of places, ranging from the lobby of the new Shadow Theatre Company in Aurora to the Boys & Girls Club in Montbello, where his sculpture of slain Denver Broncos

player Darrent Williams was unveiled in May.

 

Norm Early

Early was appointed Denver district attorney in 1983 and won re-election 1984, 1988 and 1992.

Before becoming district attorney, he served 10 years as chief deputy district attorney, helping to develop the district attorney's Victim/Witness Program, Drug Education Program, the Drinking and Driving Program, among others.

He is the former president of the Colorado District Attorneys' Counsel, was the founder and first president of the National Black Prosecutors' Association, served as a member of the boards of the Denver and Colorado Bar Associations and is the past president of the National Organization for Victim Assistance. He also served on the board of the Denver Metropolitan Football Stadium District.

 

Pera Beth Eichelberger

Eichelberger founded Washington Park Cares, a nonprofit group devoted to helping neighbors help one another remain in their homes as they age. She started the group when her husband, Bill, required help and she realized they didn't have anyone they would feel comfortable calling for assistance.

By 2007, an organizing committee had been formed to help create the nonprofit, which provides services to residents 55 and older in the area between Speer Boulevard and Evans Avenue, and Broadway and Colorado Boulevard.

Its self-pronounced goal is to help its members live "safer, healthier and more independent lives in their own homes ... offering its members preferred access to social and cultural activities, exercise opportunities and household and home maintenance services, as well as medical care and assisted living at home."

 

Marion Ellerbee

Ellerbee learned the importance of community service at "the ripe old age of 11," when she joined the Red Circle Girls of the Methodist Church in South Carolina. She moved to Denver in 1945, and 10 years later, with her late husband, purchased the home in which she still resides.

Her community service includes an appointment by then-Mayor Benjamin Stapleton to form and lead the Denver City Band. She also has been active in civic and political circles, having supported Rachel Noel's fight to integrate the Denver Public Schools and walked the neighborhood with then-Lt. Gov. George Brown and Elvin Caldwell to oppose a shopping center proposed for the land on which City Park Golf Course is located. Ellerbee, who remains active in support of the Northeast Women's Center, also has served as area president of Women in Community Service and president and regional director of Denver section of the National Council of Negro Women.

 

Margaret Escamilla

The 38-year Globeville resident has been involved with, among others, the Denver Graffiti Task Force, Garden Place Elementary Academy School and the Globeville Civic Association. Escamilla also served on the Parks and Recreation Department's committee to create a mural for the pool building in Globeville and helped turn the old sewage treatment plant into North Side Treatment Plant Park. In 1987, she and her husband were the lead plaintiffs in a pollution suit filed against the Asarco Globe metals-processing plant in Globeville. In 1994, in two major cases, Asarco agreed to pay compensation to hundreds of families and scrape yards of soil contaminated by arsenic, lead and cadmium. Escamilla was the force behind A Graffiti Program in Globeville, which enlists neighbors across the community to remove graffiti on and around their homes.

 

Ray Espinoza

Espinoza may have served as a Marine in the 1950s, but he has left his mark in Colorado as an artist.

Mr. Ray, as his family calls him, has worked for the state not only as a teacher but as a commercial artist for the Colorado Health Department and a senior graphic artist for the Division of Wildlife. Espinoza was among a group of visual and performing artists who in 1978 formed the Chicano Humanities & Arts Council for Chicano/Latino artists to preserve their heritage via the arts.

 

Matthew Faas

The Aurora native and Overland High graduate played some minor league baseball for the San Francisco Giants, but his big pitch these days is a newspaper-based literacy program.

"One Word, One Love" allows the entire paper to be researched, written, and illustrated by participating elementary school students. The program handles design and advertising, then publishes 10,000 copies of the newspaper for schools to sell as a fund-raiser.

It's a free program and each school gets to keep 100 percent of the funds they raise. Faas calls it "an intelligent alternative to candy bars and candles."

 

Mark Falcone

In 1997 Falcone founded Continuum Partners, a real estate development company born from the belief that there is a connection between long-term value, high-quality urban design and ecological sustainability.

Continuum has completed nearly $500 million in projects since, including: 16 Market Square, a 350,000- square-foot mixed-use building downtown; Belmar, a 22-city-block mixed-use urban area in Lakewood; and Arthouse in the Central Platte Valley, which includes 65 units of affordable housing, 13 luxury townhomes and the new 15,000-square-foot Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.

In addition to serving as board president of the Museum of Contemporary Art, for which he donated the land where the museum is built, Falcone also chairs The Nature Conservancy's Colorado chapter board, is a member of the Colorado Forum and a founding director of the Lab — Experiments in Arts and Ideas.

 

Jeff Fard

In 1994 the Denver native better known as Brother Jeff founded Brother Jeff's Cultural Center & Cafe in Five Points. Its goal is to foster growth in the community through the exploration of visual and performing arts and other programming.

The center's Open-Mic Poetry Set has hosted such literary notables as Amiri Baraka. The 1999 establishment of the Fard Building in the heart of Five Points provided space for various human services programs such as Out For Life Colorado, the Colorado Hip-Hop Coalition, NKM2 and the Five Points Community Mobilization Project.

Fard also publishes Brother Jeff's Annual Business and Community Resource Guide, a resource for individuals and groups.

 

Robert Flory

As director of pastoral care at Children's Hospital, Flory has provided hope and spiritual guidance to countless Denver families for more than a decade.

Under Flory's direction, The Children's Hospital offers pastoral-care services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including a bereavement program called The Colors of Healing.

Often, the children are brought into the trauma center are victims of child abuse. In these cases, it is up to Flory to try to create a non-judgmental environment for family members.

 

Amy Ford

When asked to describe what she does, Ford responds that she's primarily a stay-at-home mother to her two young children. But she's also president of the FAX Partnership, former president of the Lowry Community Master Association and a public-affairs consultant working on parts of FasTracks.

The nonprofit FAX Partnership seeks to help revitalize East Colfax, from Colorado Boulevard to Yosemite, via events and new zoning and planning efforts.

At Lowry, Ford has served to facilitate a number of delicate issues in this maturing neighborhood, such as traffic safety and recreational amenities.

Ford, who managed the $10 million public-information program for the $1.67 billion Transportation Expansion (T-REX) Project, has since formed her own consulting company to provide customized public-affairs programs for a variety of organizations.

 

Leslie Foster

President/CEO of The Gathering Place since 1990, Foster is dedicated to empowering Denver women and children who are homeless by providing a safe daytime refuge and resources for self-sufficiency.

In her 20-plus years of leading TGP, the city's only daytime drop-in center for women and children, Foster has become an authority on issues facing women and children.

A recent accomplishment: leading a capital campaign that raised $5.75 million for the construction of a 28,800-square-foot facility to provide programming and emergency services for homeless women and children.

 

Sarah Lee Foster

Foster helped promote and organize the Juneteenth Celebration in Five Points from the late '70s through the '90s, including several years when attendance exceeded 100,000 people over the course of the three-day celebration.

Under Gov. Roy Romer, she was involved in the creation of the Five Points Coalition for a Drug-Free Colorado. She still hosts an annual essay contest in which area students write why people should be drug-free; it's part of the annual Red Ribbons Celebration, now in its 17th year.

Foster helped organize the Safe Night Colorado Celebration and served as its chairwoman for seven years, along with being a founder of the Ivy Street Neighbors Association.

 

Jean Galloway

Galloway's 40-plus years as a leader in the community includes working on successful initiatives such as the YMCA's Janet's Camp, the First American State Bank Fitness Festival and the Young Americans Education Foundation Young Entrepreneurs Program. In 2000, she left her post as vice president, community relations, for 9News to form the Galloway Group, a consulting firm dedicated to creating partnerships between businesses and deserving nonprofit organizations. Galloway has also served a three-year board term as national chairwoman for Volunteers of America Inc. and has been an active fundraiser for the organization, co-creating the successful charitable event, Western Fantasy.

 

Marge Gilbert

In 1948 Marge and Les Gilbert bought a home in North Park Hill, where she still lives today. Always committed to diversity, during the 1960s Gilbert urged families to stay when the Park Hill Action Committee opposed real estate agents contributing to housing and school segregation.

She has served for many years on the Northeast Denver Housing Center Board, a nonprofit agency that provides housing for low-income families. She worked on the Park Hill Neighborhood Plan, pressured for the closure of Stapleton Airport and then worked on the Stapleton Development Plan.

Gilbert stood alongside the citizens insisting that Denver suitably landscape Martin Luther King Boulevard to honor the national leader for which it was named. Today, that's a reality. She's been honored with many awards, including being named the 1975 United Way Volunteer of the Year.

 

Grace Gillette

Gillette was born and raised on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota and has participated in the planning of numerous ceremonies her entire life.

As executive director of the Denver March Powwow, she oversees the annual three-day gathering. This year's event attracted some 1,200 dancers (from 32 states and three Canadian provinces) and 37 drum groups.

About 90 tribes were represented, from the Cree of northern Ontario to the Jicarilla Apache of New Mexico.

The graduate of Berea Foundation School in Kentucky has more than 40 years of management experience and has been involved with the powwow for more than 25 years.

 

Nita Gonzales

Gonzales has kept alive Escuela Tlatelolco, a school founded in 1969 by her late father, noted activist Corky Gonzales. The school's goal: increase interest in the educational process for Chicano/Mexican students through the study of their history and fostering a sense of pride in their culture.

Gonzales is also in the forefront of the immigration movement and this year led two peaceful marches to bring attention to the issue. One march was in May, and the other during the Democratic National Convention.

By working with city leaders and sending a clear message to participants that the event was going to be peaceful and lawful, both events received attention for the issues they raised, not their unlawfulness.

 

Tom Gougeon

Gougeon has been a quiet but pivotal force in Denver's evolution. In his 20s, he played a central role in the successful campaign of Federico Peña, Denver's first Hispanic mayor.

As a policy aide for the mayor, he took the slogan "Imagine a Great City" and helped make it a reality. He helped create (and later directed) the mayor's office of economic development, drove the creation of Denver International Airport, helped redevelop Cherry Creek Mall and helped protect the historic Mayan Theater.

As chief executive officer of the Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation from 1993 to 1997 he raised funds from every major foundation in the state to advance the community's vision of a great new city neighborhood. Most recently, Gougeon has led a much-expanded emphasis on water conservation as chairman of the Denver Water Board, and as a developer, he led the creation of a new "downtown" for the city of Lakewood.

 

Hugh A. Grant

The director and curator of Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art has been a driving force in the arts for more than 25 years.

Grant helped elevate the work of Vance Kirkland, one of Colorado's most famous artists and art educators, to the world forum when he opened the museum at 1311 Pearl St. in Capitol Hill in 2003. The museum had 8,500 visitors in 2007 and already has surpassed that in 2008.

Grant and his wife, Merle Chambers, have contributed much of their time and money to help put Denver on the map as a world-class city in the decorative and fine arts, and have been great supporters of the performing arts in Denver.

 

David Greenberg

New Schools Development Corp. grew out of Greenberg's efforts to help conceive and open the Denver School of Science & Technology in 2004. Within three years it had achieved the highest standardized test scores of any urban high school in Colorado.

Based on its success, Greenberg realized that the real estate community has a strong interest in having good schools, so he launched his company to enable the connection between developers and local school districts.

Long active in education reform, Greenberg previously served as a member of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education from 1993 to 2003. A co-founder of the Denver consulting firm GBSM, prior to that Greenberg was legal adviser and speechwriter to Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm.

 

Jill Hadley Hooper

Hadley Hooper grew up in Denver, moved away for school, but has returned and become a nationally known illustrator and painter.

Her work has been seen in Harper's, The New York Times and Time magazine, among others. She has illustrated book covers for Harper Collins, Viking, Random House, Delacort Press and Penguin. Her work has been recognized in American Illustration, Communication Arts and by the Society of Publication Designers.

She is also the co-founder, along with Tracy Weil, of the River North Art District, RiNo for short.

 

Dea Harmon

Harmon has been a volunteer with the Share Program for 20 years and also has volunteered with the Mulroy Senior Center for the same amount of time.

Harmon, who uses her own vehicle to deliver and pick up essentials for seniors and their families, has been known to deliver food to families in the middle of the night so they can have breakfast in the morning.

Harmon is known to secretly donate money, food and material items to the center and for other families who live in the community. Dea and her family will come out and help to pick up and deliver donations to the center, and will even help to store the items until they can be dispersed to the seniors and the community.

 

Rosalind J. Harris

Harris does it all as owner, publisher and art director of the Denver Urban Spectrum newspaper, which has been "spreading the news about people of color" for more than 20 years.

Active in the community, she has been on the boards of the Colorado Association of Black Journalists, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, and the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. In 2000, she founded the Urban Spectrum Youth Foundation, a journalism program for youth ages 13 to 17.

Recently, she launched a redesigned Web site that will strive to connect readers and advertisers through a Digital Advertising Guide as well as offer a social network, ConnectMe.

 

Anna Jo Haynes

While early learning may be understood, and even fashionable, these days, Haynes has been a significant force from the beginning.

For the past two decades, she has served as the executive director of Mile High Montessori, where she is responsible for the operation of 11 learning centers for children from low-income families.

Haynes' philosophy on early childhood education is simple: The better the investment, the better the return. Her advocacy for children under age 4 stems from her knowledge that education simply begins that early.

In 2004, Mile High United Way created the Anna Jo Haynes Caring About Kids Award. The award, which was given to Haynes that first year, recognizes an individual who has made the highest level of commitment to early childhood education in metro Denver.

 

Nita Mosby Henry

The Kaleidoscope Project, founded by Henry, addresses issues in the African-American community such as volunteerism and leadership development, as well as programs addressing tobacco impact, education, and cessation solutions.

Henry's group links health education with civic engagement/volunteerism and leadership.

An example: Henry's ability to get volunteers for smoking cessation classes by first providing an opportunity for them to volunteer on a Habitat for Humanity build. In this case, 100 percent of the people who joined the Habitat build signed up for and completed smoking cessation classes.

Nita is working with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado on their Saturday @ the Park initiative to involve smokers in the volunteer effort to help build the trail around Denver's City Park.

 

Chanda Hinton

A spinal cord injury had compromised Hinton's health to the point in 2003 when her weight had dropped to 59 pounds, she had chronic pain and her immune system was severely weakened.

But switching to alternative healing treatments such as acupuncture, massage therapy, diet, electric stimulation and physical therapy enabled her to gain 20 pounds and become almost pain-free. In addition, her endurance, strength and movement increased dramatically.

But Medicaid, often the primary insurance for those with disabilities such as this, does not fund alternative treatments.

So Hinton is dedicated to making these treatments accessible for others through her nonprofit Chanda Plan Foundation, so those in need can get these treatments and learn about other ways to pay for them.

 

Paulette Hirsch

Hirsch has worked since 1985, when she became president of the Globeville Civic Association, to improve the quality of life in the North Denver neighborhood. She negotiated the acquisition of long-needed sidewalks, paved alleys, historic lighting and underground utility lines for Globeville.

Perhaps more important, Hirsch played a significant role in efforts to secure the funding to improve a 21/2-mile stretch of the South Platte River from a garbage-strewn haven for drug dealers and taggers to a jewel for the city.

The project, completed in June, removed 300 acres of mostly industrial land from the 100-year flood plain, which means business owners and residents will no longer be required to buy flood insurance.

Hirsch also has served three terms on the board of directors of Larridon Hall and helped guide its development from a small residential facility to one of the largest and best facilities assisting learning-challenged children in the county.

 

Matt Hogan

As chairman of the Denver Children's Advocacy Center, Hogan works on behalf of children who have been traumatized by sexual abuse and domestic violence.

The center now treats more than 1,000 child victims of sexual abuse and violence annually — at no cost to their families.

When Hogan became chairman in 2003, the agency was struggling financially and had a shaky reputation.

Starting in January, 2004, he led a capital campaign to purchase a new facility. By spring the perfect site was found, and he handled financing, zoning, historic district requirements and renovations.

When the building next door became available, Hogan saw an opportunity to expand; within a year, the center had purchased the second building in the "Kids' Campus."

 

Walter Isenberg

The co-founder and CEO of Sage Hospitality Resources oversees a company that owns and operates 47 hotels in 22 states. In Denver that includes the Oxford Hotel, The Curtis and the JW Marriott Denver at Cherry Creek, among others.

Isenberg and his partner, Zack Neumeyer, have turned around dozens of distressed properties and are known for the restoration of historically significant buildings. Sage was the first recipient of Marriott International's Spirit to Serve Award, given to a franchise partner that lives its vision to be an outstanding corporate citizen.

Isenberg is chairman of the Campaign to Restore Historic Treat Hall for Johnson & Wales University and serves on the boards of the Downtown Denver Partnership, Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Children's Hospital Foundation, among others.

 

Kirk Johnson

Johnson, chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, has an advanced understanding of the Denver region and its place in the world, scientifically speaking.

Johnson played a central role in the museum's Prehistoric Journey, an award-winning permanent exhibit that brings prehistoric science to life. Johnson's groundbreaking work on the Denver Basin (the "bowl" of rock strata in which Denver sits) helped to literally put Denver on the map internationally.

He helped excavate and interpret fossil bones and plants at Coors Field and DIA, where fossil plant replicas and dinosaur footprints embedded in the floors serve as a reminder of what lies underneath. In 2001, Johnson and a team of museum scientists uncovered the first (and farthest north) known fossil rain forest in a road cut adjacent to Interstate 25, near Castle Rock — a groundbreaking discovery that shattered previously held understanding of paleo-climatic conditions.

 

Arthur Jones

The senior clinical professor in the psychology department at the University of Denver focuses much of his teaching and writing on multicultural issues, with an emphasis on African-American mental health. He is also the chairman of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

In 1991, he founded the Spirituals Project, a nonprofit to "preserve and revitalize the music and teachings of the sacred songs called 'spirituals,' created and first sung by enslaved Africans in America in the 18th and 19th centuries."

The group includes three performing ensembles and a multimedia educational Web site, as well as school and community programs, an oral history project and a series of solo lecture and concert programs, many featuring Jones as a presenter and performer.

 

Leon Kelly

Kelly is the heart and soul of Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives, which since 1987 has worked to help children find alternatives to violence and gang-related activities.

Having experienced his own difficulties in the late 1970s (he served three years in a penitentiary), Kelly has since worked tirelessly as an advocate to at-risk youth, helping offer programs ranging from after-school programs for elementary-age children to gang mediation and conflict resolution.

The founding member of the Metro Gang Coalition, Kelly has been a valuable asset for the city, working to advise them and facilitate communication with gangs. He has been honored many times for his work, including the Liberty Bell Award from the Denver Bar Association and El Pomar Award of Excellence.

 

Richard Krugman

Krugman's impact on Denver stretches back four decades, to the year he joined the University of Colorado School of Medicine as an intern.

For the past 18 years he has been dean of the medical school — the second-longest tenure of any active medical school dean in the country — and runs the only M.D.-granting institution within a 500-mile radius of Denver.

While adept at building specialty medical programs, Krugman always has emphasized primary care. As a result, UC Denver's primary-care program ranks fourth nationally.

Perhaps Krugman's greatest accomplishment has been to maintain a Top-25 national ranking for the medical school despite receiving the lowest per-capita state support of any med school in the nation, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

 

Sally Kurtzman

Denver's "Recycling Queen," Kurtzman started the Capitol Hill Recycling Network in 1980. She cajoled King Soopers at East Ninth Avenue and Corona Street to put a truck in its parking lot one weekend each month to collect aluminum, glass, newspaper and plastic. Then she enlisted volunteers to spend weekends in that hot-in-summer, freezing-in-winter truck sorting recyclables.

Kurtzman later flew to Seattle at her own expense to see its recycling system and came back with information about how to bring it here. She served on multiple citizen committees, including those formed by the mayor and governor. Thanks to her efforts, a curbside recycling pilot program was undertaken in 1991, and the citywide program rolled out in 1999. Now more than 50 percent of Denver households use curbside recycling.

 

Francois Lacour-Gayet

The pediatric heart surgeon has literally given the gift of life to hundreds of children around the world. In addition to Denver, he has performed cardiac surgeries in 21 countries, throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Lacour-Gayet has increased the number of complex heart surgeries at The Children's Hospital since his 2002 arrival and enabled the hospital to offer a wider array of treatment options as alternatives to heart transplants. He and his team operate on smaller infants every year; they can now surgically repair infants weighing less than 5 pounds. Lacour-Gayet developed the Aristotle Score, a tool used to evaluate the quality of care provided by heart-surgery programs based on a variety of factors.

 

Dora-Lee Larson

Larson helped craft Denver's probable cause, mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence offenders in 1984 (a full decade before it became state law). That same year, she helped initiate the Denver Domestic Violence Task Force, now renamed the Denver Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. This group helped develop municipal domestic violence intervention policies, filled gaps in services to victims and launched a public relations campaign in collaboration with Denver's five professional sports teams to help the community understand how domestic violence affects children exposed to batterers.

As the executive director of Project Safeguard in the 1990s, she co-created Colorado's first Domestic Violence Fatality Review and Denver's first Court Watch Program. Larson has been chief executive officer of the Denver Domestic Violence Coordinating Council since 2001 and is community education director for SafeHouse Denver.

 

Leona Lazar

Lazar has been involved in the arts since the mid-1970s as an artist, educator, curator and administrator.

In her current position as executive director of the Arts Students League, as well as her previous role as associate director of the Mizel Museum of Judaica, she established collaborations with other arts organizations and artists. At the League she has developed partnerships with Stories on Stage, Colorado Lawyers for the Arts and Doors Open Denver, among others.

Since she joined the league, the faculty has increased by more than 50 percent and membership has grown by more than 900 members.

 

Carol Lease

Lease has made an incredible mark on thousands of women since helping found The Empowerment Program in 1986.

More than 22 years later the Denver native is still executive director of the nonprofit devoted to education, health, employment, substance-abuse counseling and HIV/AIDS support. The program now employs more than 30 people and has served more than 20,000 women and men since its inception.

Lease has set in motion programs to help individuals end their dependence on illegal substances, provided stable housing for mentally ill women and helped formerly incarcerated individuals re-acclimate to society.

A founding member of the Colorado Women's Health Advocacy Coalition and Colorado AIDS Project, she's also a member of the Mayor's Alternatives to Sentencing Committee, which studies and implements diversion and prevention programs designed to reduce recidivism.

 

Rich LeDuc

Taylor Reeves, a 12-year-old member of the Colorado Rapids Swim Team, was remarkable not only for her ability but also because she was undergoing treatment for cancer. After leaving swim practice one fall evening in 2003, her young life ended.

So in 2004 her coach, LeDuc, launched the Taylor Reeves Invitational Swim Meet with 100 swimmers. This year the meet attracted 475 swimmers with proceeds, now approaching $30,000, donated to The Children's Hospital Foundation Pediatric Oncology Department in her memory.

As coach for the Highlands Ranch Aquatics group and Colorado Rapids Swim Team, he formed a partnership with an orphanage for children with disabilities in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. During the holiday season his swimmers provide winter clothing and toys to 75 orphans.

LeDuc also responded when Molly Bloom, herself a competitive swimmer, was severely injured in a 2006 prom night accident. As a member of the Bloom Again Foundation, he played a key role in a 24-hour swimathon that raised $65,000 in 2006 and $20,000 in 2007 to assist seriously ill or injured athletes recover and compete again.

 

Harry Lewis

The founder and president of Harry T. Lewis Jr. Investments has a long record of civic involvement, as a past chairman of Downtown Denver Inc. and the Denver Partnership.

Lewis co-chaired the Citizens for Denver's Future Committee, created by the mayor and City Council in 1988 to evaluate the city's infrastructure and capital asset needs. That committee's recommendations were incorporated in a $214.7 million bond election and approved in their entirety by Denver voters in 1989. Lewis has long been involved with the city's redevelopment plans for the Stapleton Airport site and serves as a director of the Stapleton Development Corp. and chairman of the Stapleton Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities.

 

Lloyd Lewis

As president and chief executive officer of arc Thrift Stores, Lewis generates funds to support The Arc chapters in Colorado, which provide direct services to thousands of individuals and their families.

Lewis employs more than 700 employees with a $14 million payroll at 18 Front Range locations. As the father of a son with Down Syndrome, Lewis is especially committed to providing advocacy and services for children and adults with developmental disabilities in the community. His leadership resulted in employing women from a safe house and the chronically unemployed through a program with the city and county of Denver.

In addition, he has worked diligently to improve arc Thrift's annual food drive on behalf of Volunteers of America, which collects 80 tons of food for VOA food programs, as well as other charitable events in Denver.

 

Randle Loeb

Loeb understands the issues the homeless face because he faced them himself, years ago, when he found himself on the streets because of a manic depressive disorder. Since escaping the streets, he has become a valuable resource on issues of poverty, mental illness and especially homelessness. He has provided support for Denver's Road Home, part of the city's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, since its inception. He has spoken to hundreds of community groups on poverty, including classes at Regis University, CU Denver, the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, where he earned a master's of divinity in 1981.

Loeb's service has earned him the Ellen Dailey Consumer Advocacy Award, the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award and the Mitch Snyder Advocacy Award, among others.

 

Laura Love

Love helped Tennyson Center for Children, a leading residential and day treatment program, avoid bankruptcy by creating a public relations campaign that helped save the agency. Today, the Center serves more than 250 neglected and at-risk children daily.

Love is the founder and president of GroundFloor Media Inc., a public relations firm that employs 24 people. Community giving is rooted in Love's belief that companies must be good tenants of the world, which is why Love donates 20 percent of GroundFloor Media's services to nonprofit, pro bono work.

Love serves on several boards, including Colorado Chapter of the Entrepreneur's Organization, Outward Bound and Tennyson Center for Children. GroundFloor Media employees dedicate their talents and resources to various organizations, including the 2006 Special Olympics USA National Games and The Bridge Project.

 

Stevon Lucero

Lucero has lived and worked in Denver since 1976, when he moved his small family here from Laramie. He quickly became an active participant in the growing Denver art scene and helped create the Latino arts organization CHAC.

He generously has provided his experience and advice to dozens of young artists looking for a mentor, and not just in his field of visual art.

In 1978, he began working on mural projects, with much success. In 1992 he painted the Tlateco Market diorama for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's exhibit "Aztec: The World of Montezuma." In 1996, he was recognized by the Museo de las Americas in Colorado with a one-man show.

 

Lunden MacDonald

In the early morning hours of June 1, 2001, MacDonald woke to find her infant son, Gus, dead in his crib. The baby was just 18 months old, and in perfect health prior to his unexpected death. Because Gus was older than 12 months at the time of his death, his diagnosis did not fit the guidelines for a determination of sudden infant death syndrome.

Since then, MacDonald has raised awareness and established an annual fundraiser for the Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood Foundation, which tries to answer the "why" question for families who lose children. MacDonald and another SUDC parent launched the "Josh and Gus Run for A Reason" in November 2001. The event celebrates the lives of little ones lost to SUDC and has annually raised more than $50,000 for research. There are now nine "Runs for a Reason" across the nation.

 

Evan Makovsky

Makovsky has long been at the forefront of sales in high profile and transitional Denver neighborhoods, such as lower downtown, Highlands and Denargo Market/Brighton Boulevard. Now more than 35 years old, the Shames-Makovsky Realty Company has concentrated on local property sales to investors and owner/users, with an emphasis on Denver and surrounding communities. New projects range from the ground-up development of vacant land to redevelopment of existing buildings.

The company's most high-profile project recently would be its purchase and renovation of the Fontius building at 16th and Welton streets, which had been an ugly thorn in downtown's side since it became nearly vacant in 1988.

 

Timothy and Bernadette Marquez

Only 9 percent of Denver Public Schools students earn a college degree within 10 years of high school graduation.

The Marquezes want to change that. The couple co-founded the Denver Scholarship Foundation in 2006 with Mayor John Hickenlooper by making a challenge donation of $50 million toward building an endowment for post-secondary scholarships for all DPS graduates.

During the 2007-08 school year, the Marquezes' guidance and generosity enabled DSF to provide more than 10,000 students with post-secondary advisement and help students complete more than 4,000 scholarship applications. That resulted in $15.6 million in grants and scholarships over and above scholarship money provided by the foundation.

Tim Marquez is founder and chief executive officer of Venoco Inc., a public, Denver-based energy company.

His wife is a passionate community leader, nurse and philanthropist.

 

Eric Matelski

Matelski is a longtime champion of the local arts scene. He created, and for the past two years has hosted, First Monday Art Talk.

The monthly talk-show format event at Dazzle jazz club spotlights local artists in an eclectic program that includes area DJs, musicians, poets and dancers.

He has contributed his efforts to benefit several organizations and nonprofits, including Project Angel Heart, Slavens School and the Art Students League of Denver.

Matelski also created the Art Farm, which presents art in unusual outdoor settings and partners with Denver Urban Gardens.

 

Paddy McClelland

McClelland, who formed the Platt Park People's Association Green Team, teaches others how to be more energy-efficient. The Green Team is designed to carry on the work of the Trees Committee, looking for ways to mitigate the unnecessary loss of trees, as well as restore and maintain the tree canopy.

In addition to its focus on trees, the committee will look for more ways Platt Park can go green. Composting and recycling are just a few of the initiatives the Green Team will employ to help the Platt Park neighborhood look beautiful and stay environmentally responsible.

 

Tommi McHugh

The therapeutic child life specialist in The Children's Hospital's Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders helps patients and their loved ones cope with their diagnoses, treatments and, sometimes, death.

She uses teaching methods for young patients, such as using dolls to demonstrate such procedures as spinal taps. McHugh has run a support group for teen and young adult patients the last seven years, organizing special events such as birthday parties, high school graduations and an annual prom. This year's prom took place at the Westin Hotel and included appearances by Slacker and Steve from Alice Radio and several members of the Colorado Avalanche. The evening for the 40 patients able to attend included dresses, hairstyling, makeup and manicures for all of the girls as well as tuxedos for the boys.

For the siblings of hospital patients, McHugh and her colleagues organize two one-day sibling camps each year, so that those children can have a special day just for them, a treasured occasion when living with a critically ill brother or sister.

 

Candy and Henry Meininger

In 1881 Emil Meininger arrived in Denver and opened Colorado's first art-supply store. Today, the H.R. Meininger Co. is owned and operated by the fourth generation of the Meininger family.

Under the direction of Henry Meininger, the company has grown into one of the largest art supply stores west of the Mississippi, with more than 28,000 square feet of space, serving customers in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.

Meininger's encourages youngsters with its Kids' Art Club classes for children ages 6 to 12 throughout the year and also provides a resource on its Web site for teachers and parents to exchange ideas for creative activities and lesson plans.

 

James Mejia

The Denver Preschool Program's mission is to make quality preschool available to all Denver children. As chief executive, Mejia has directed a broad-based community outreach campaign during the program's first year.

The program has helped more than 2,500 families receive tuition credits to send their children to preschool, and more than 75 preschools are enrolled in its quality improvement program.

Previously, from 2004 to 2007, Mejia was project manager for the Denver Justice Center, where he was instrumental in garnering support for the project from the City Council, other government officials and neighboring residents.

He oversaw Denver's Department of Parks and Recreation from 2001 to 2003, helping create a 50-year strategic plan for continued maintenance, improvement and expansion.

 

Morey Melnick

Melnick has been a volunteer at the Schlessman Family YMCA since it opened in 2002. In his main job, giving computer lessons, he helps people young and old get more comfortable with technology.

His outgoing personality makes everyone feel comfortable using a computer, no matter how old they are, since he is in his 80s. Melnick's dedication to helping one person at a time adds up: He has given more than 300 lessons. When he's not teaching, he assists at the Denver Public Library, with such tasks as shelving and searching for lost items.

 

Jose Mercado

The Labyrinth Arts Academy is a nonprofit founded in 2007 that offers education in theater and media arts for public schools and at-risk youth. Since 2003 some 97 percent of students involved in Mercado's theater programs, beginning at North High School, have earned a high school diploma; half have moved on to post-secondary education.

Before coming to Denver, he worked as an actor in television and onstage in Los Angeles. Starting at North in 2003, Mercado directed Zoot Suit Riots. The play was such a success that it ultimately became the first high school production to play at the Buell Theatre. He has since left North to become an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre, Film & Video Production at the University of Colorado at Denver.

 

Dana Miller

The unofficial "mayor" of Krisana Park in southeast Denver organizes neighborhood parties and home tours, donating profits to the neighborhood school, Ellis Elementary. Miller maintains and moderates an e-mail list for neighbors to share resources and information, creating a sense of community. Miller raises environmental awareness by sharing information about how to create energy independence and holds gatherings to suggest neighbors collaborate to reduce energy use. She even has a community compost bin in her front yard.

Miller partnered with a neighbor in 2007 to launch BaggyShirts, a company employing retirees to create reusable bags made from recycled shirts.

The enterprise created a new environmentally friendly product and secured jobs with a decent wage for an underemployed segment of the population.

 

David J. Miller

The fifth-generation Denverite became executive director (and later, CEO) of the Denver Foundation in 1996. During his tenure, its endowment has grown from $48.5 million in 1995 to more than than $300 million.

Established in 1925, the Denver Foundation is a community foundation — a permanent pool of money to benefit the seven-county metro area. In 2005, the foundation gave away $27 million in grants to nonprofit organizations. Before the Denver Foundation, Miller had a long career in state and city government, first as executive director of the Colorado Office of State Planning and Budgeting as a member of Gov. Richard Lamm's administration and later as chief of staff for Mayor Federico Peña.

 

Hazel Miller

Miller was headed to Los Angeles with her band when their rental truck broke down in Denver. That bad break in 1984 was the start of a long musical relationship with the Mile High City. After playing around town for a time, the vocalist signed on with Big Head Todd & The Monsters as a regular part of the band's lineup and toured the world. In 1992 she released her debut album, a cassette of cover songs, and in 1995 Live At The Fox. The release I'm Still Looking followed in 2000.

She has since opened for the likes of Herbie Hancock, Bob Weir, Buddy Guy and James Taylor, as well as performing for U.S. soldiers overseas.

 

Nettie Moore

Moore might have retired after serving as the lunch lady for thousands of Denver Public Schools children, but her community work continues into her 80s.

Years ago she recognized the need for a playground along Lakewood Dry Gulch, so she worked with Denver Parks and Recreation. Nettie Moore Playground became a reality across from her home in 1992 and she still organizes a cleanup annually of the playground.

She was a primary driver behind development of the Lakewood Gulch path between Sheridan and the Platte River as well as an advocate of the Lakewood Gulch light rail.

She has volunteered her time with the Greater Avondale Community Association, the West Colfax and the Sloans Lake Citizen's Group, among others.

 

Jesse Morreale

Starting in Denver 17 years ago, Morreale helped build one of the country's largest independent concert-promotion companies — Nobody in Particular Presents.

In turn, those concerts helped build the local music scene as well as the reputations of NIPP's local theaters, the Ogden and Bluebird. The company's work also transformed the Denver Botanic Gardens concert series into what it is today.

In 2004 Morreale founded M Inc, which manages his hospitality and entertainment-related businesses, including: Mezcal Taqueria y Tequileria, Tambien Cantina, La Rumba Nightclub, and Rockbar, as well as various real estate development projects. Throughout, Jesse has partnered with nonprofits and local leaders to help meet community needs.

 

Chuck Morris

After Morris started his career in Boulder during the late '60s at the famous Tulagi nightclub, his impact spread to Denver when he opened Ebbetts Field downtown. That legendary club brought in early tours from such acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd and Richard Pryor.

Morris promoted shows alongside Barry Fey, as VP of Feyline, at the Rainbow Music Hall and Red Rocks during the '70s and '80s, before launching Bill Graham Presents/Chuck Morris Presents. While there, he oversaw the renovation of the old Mammoth Gardens into the Fillmore Auditorium.

In the summer of 2002, in partnership with Kroenke Sports Enterprises, he opened The Universal Lending CityLights Pavilion, a 5,000-seat amphitheater at the Pepsi Center.

In fall 2005, working with Mayor John Hickenlooper and the Dave Matthews Band, he helped raise more than $1 million with a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In 2007 he joined AEG Live as President-CEO of the Rocky Mountain Region; since then AEG Live has become the largest booker of shows at Red Rocks, bringing in millions of dollars in seat tax revenue to the city.

 

Karen Nakandakare

Nakandakare has a long background providing mediation, problem-solving, communications and team-building with a variety of for-profit, nonprofit and governmental organizations.

The senior diversity professional with CH2M HILL works to continually strengthen the firm's diversity program and is a member of the firm's Better Denver Communication Team.

Previously, Nakandakare was appointed by Mayor John Hickenlooper to serve on the Police Reform Task Force, the City's Police Department Biased Policing Task Force, and Infrastructure Priorities Task Force. She also assists the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival as its community partnership/public safety director.

 

Elaine Neal

Neal taught at schools in Virginia, France, New Mexico and California before she moved to Denver and began a career as a juvenile court probation officer. She served the troubled youth of the criminal justice system for 28 years before retiring in 2000.

But she continued to help, designing programs to benefit young women, including: the Chrysalis Project, which provides treatment for teens involved in prostitution; Project SAK, to assist young inner-city women with self-esteem issues, and The Music Project, which provides music instruction for delinquent and disadvantaged youth.

A member of Blacks in Criminal Justice, she was instrumental in getting a program in place called "Soaring Eagle," where the organization adopts a school (Montbello High School) and a teen, with whom they work throughout the school year.

 

Khoa Nguyen

The principal of Ellis Elementary School has been a mentor and advocate for the past 20 years for children and families who have relocated to the metro area as refugees and immigrants.

Nguyen came to Denver as a 17-year-old refugee in 1975 from Vietnam when he and his family fled their homeland with the fall of Saigon. He learned English and worked many jobs, including washing dishes, so he could attend college, where he earned a master's degree in social work. After starting in social work for Denver Public Schools, Nguyen worked his way up to school principal.

He has been successful in attracting and sustaining monetary commitment and support from the Denver community and also volunteers his time, including as a member of Denver's Asian-Pacific American Commission.

 

Sen Nguyen

Nguyen fled Vietnam in 1975 near the end of the war and, after many hardships, reached Denver. She earned a degree at Regis University before taking her vows in 1992 at Marycrest Franciscan convent in Denver.

But she never forgot the disabled in Vietnam, who are among that country's least fortunate.

By founding Provide-N-Ce Gallery, Nguyen has helped disadvantaged Vietnamese women secure jobs and provided orphans with food, clothes and schooling.

The gallery displays and sells artwork, clothing, accessories and other goods created by a cooperative of young women in Ho Chi Minh City, disabled by polio, who support themselves by doing embroidery and portraits.

She also founded Bridging Hope, whose mission is to provide assistance to indigent, ill, disadvantaged and disabled women and children in Vietnam.

 

Joel Noble

"I have a passion for making woodshop the core of education, where you learn to read and write, do math, learn the history of the world, and discover how to relate to other cultures and become a person of character," said Noble.

In 2007-08, his East High School students made and donated 20 violins and 25 drums to the Bill Roberts K-8 School.

Previously, his advanced class made Chinese furniture from the Ming Dynasty, using authentic Chinese tools.

Under his supervision, students renovated the East High School Library and Alumni Heritage Hall, in the process building tables reverse-engineered from the single existing original in the school museum, as well as making bookshelves, and the circulation desk for the completely restored library, all based on 1920s photographs.

 

Tom Noel

Historian, storyteller and raconteur, Noel is known as "Dr. Colorado" for his knowledge of local lore.

The University of Colorado at Denver professor since 1990 (he attended CU-Boulder) makes history come alive, constantly giving talks, leading tours and partaking of re-enactments related to the colorful history of Colorado. He's also knowledgeable about historic preservation and national parks history.

He has published nearly 40 books on his own or in collaboration with others, and always has several more in the works. One of Noel's qualities is that he is always quick to include, mentor and acknowledge his peers and colleagues. Because of that, his influence will be felt for many decades to come.

 

Andy Nowak

Nowak has combined 25 years as a chef with a passion for education and home gardening. He has developed programs in Denver Public Schools to teach children where their food comes from, provide lessons in nutrition and teach basic cooking skills.

As a volunteer with Slow Food Denver, Nowak has helped develop the Seed-To-Table School Garden Program, which has established vegetable gardens in 16 elementary schools around Denver. Nowak teaches plant life cycles, composting, home gardening, cultural flavors and recipes.

This past summer four schools had weekly Youth Farmers' Markets, with students supplying produce from the school gardens and manpower for the markets that brought fresh fruit and vegetables into neighborhoods without a consistent supply of local produce.

 

Joe O'Dea

O'Dea has donated more than $100,000 in money, labor, equipment and materials to the Franciscan Friends of the Poor homeless shelter.

He also lined up other companies to donate materials to help build the shelter, at 1101 W. Seventh Ave., also known as Father Woody's Haven of Hope. His contributions help provide food, shelter, clothing and counseling to Denver's homeless and indigent.

O'Dea also worked for greater diversity in the construction industry. In 2006, Concrete Express, the company he co-founded in 1986, joined a half-dozen other construction firms to underwrite the creation of the Rocky Mountain Minority Contractors Association.

He has also donated money and time to both of his alma maters — Mullen High and Colorado State University — as well as to the National Western Stock Show.

 

Carrie Olson

In 1992 Olson's fifth-grade class at Kepner Middle School demonstrated an insatiable appetite to learn more about the Holocaust after participating in the Anne Frank writing contest. So when the Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in Washington, D.C., she knew her students had to go.

The families in one of Denver's highest poverty neighborhoods and the teachers worked together to raise the funds for the students to spend a week in Washington. The trip's impact was so profound, that in 2003 a 10-day trip to Europe was added to Olson's elective program.

It sticks to the topic of the Holocaust, and includes a visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

In more than 20 years of teaching in Denver's inner city schools, several thousand students have passed through Olson's classroom and more than 700 have taken her electives, which can result in the travel opportunities. Through the Kepner Educational Excellence Program, a nonprofit she founded to support educational and mentoring programs at Kepner, her efforts now affect each of the more than 1,000 students at Kepner.

 

Jerome Page

Page started a life helping others when he joined the Peace Corps to serve in Venezuela.

His professional career began in 1965 when he interned for Sebastian Owens, the legendary Denver Urban League director.

He moved on to the Urban League of Seattle, where he was named President/CEO two years later.

Page went on to become President/CEO in Greater Metro Washington, D.C., Chattanooga, Tenn., and (finally returning to his native Colorado) the Pikes Peak Regional Office.

Page retired in 2001 and moved back to his birthplace in Denver, where he has remained involved in community service.

He works with nonprofit organizations such as Denver and Africa Working against AIDS, the United Nations

Association-USA of Colorado and Brother Jeff's Community Health Initiative helping to address the impact of HIV on people of color.

 

John Parvensky

Parvensky's 22 years of leadership at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has created a legacy of affordable housing and human services for homeless and low-income citizens, serving more than 15,000 annually.

CCH has developed and manages more than 1,200 affordable rental units, including the award winning historical renovation of the downtown Denver YMCA, and is building 230 affordable rental units in three Green Communities developments that will be completed by 2010. CCH also offers more than 20 programs, from comprehensive medical care to early childhood education.

In 2006, Parvensky co-authored a report documenting a savings to the city of county of Denver of $31,545 per program participant per year.

 

Don Pearson

The 81-year-old Pearson came to Mount Saint Vincent having never been a volunteer — but he could repair bikes. Now he comes regularly to keep the bikes humming along.

He's been volunteering for more than decade now, after retiring from his longtime job as a singer and piano player at area clubs. He's known by all on campus as "The bike guy."

Pearson is always patient and kind to the children, thorough in his explanations about caring for their bikes and using them safely. From the time he gets the bikes out in the spring, until they are put in the shed for the winter, Pearson is at Mount Saint Vincent making sure that each child is able to ride a bike of his or her own.

 

Lonnie Porter

In 1996 Porter founded the Lonnie Porter Leadership Academy (it became the Porter/Billups Leadership Academy in 2007) at Regis University. The three-week summer academy provides at-risk boys and girls (ages 8-18) the skills to stay in school, overcome peer pressure, graduate from high school and attend college.

Students receive training in leadership, teamwork, conflict resolution, communication skills, and technology. The academy, which is free to its students, provides full scholarships to Regis University for those who complete the long-term program.

The academy's first six students are attending Regis University. The academy's goal is to have 50 of its graduates enrolled in college, working toward a degree.

 

Dean Prina

Prina has given thousands of dollars, has been a regular volunteer and is a strong advocate for children, women, and disadvantaged communities.

One of his most significant accomplishments is serving as the founding member and chairman of the Denver Foundation's Expanding Non-Profit Inclusiveness Initiative, which promotes inclusiveness of women and/or minorities on non-profit boards in Denver and Colorado. But it's hardly his only board work: He has served on more than 30 boards, including The Women's Foundation of Colorado, Rose Community Foundation and The Chinook Fund.

As a pediatrician for his group practice, Partners in Pediatrics, he works one-on-one with children. On a larger scale, he is devoted to supporting Adams' Camp, an organization that offers activities for children with special needs and support for their families.

 

Julie Reiskin

As the executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disabilities Coalition, Reiskin has taken a leadership role in Colorado on publicly funded long-term health care.

Reiskin has proposed and helped to implement solutions to create a sustainable and client-friendly Medicaid program, acted as an advocate for individuals and trained many others in health advocacy and policy.

Before leading CCDC in 1996, she served as the organizations's policy analyst. Reiskin moved to Colorado from Connecticut in 1994.

 

Daniel Ridgeway

For more than a decade Ridgeway has taken disadvantaged children on adventures through the Inner City Outings program of the Sierra Club. The trips have ranged from a challenging multiday telemark ski trip to rafting trips down the Green River in Utah.

The youth served in the Inner City Outings program come from other cultures, whether it is the children of political refugees from Africa or Serbia, or immigrants displaced by the agricultural impacts of NAFTA.

Ridgeway has served as a mentor to children who have grown from elementary school through college. Many of these kids would not have made it through school but for his attention to their needs, whether it's a need for food or help finding a job. All of these activities have been offered without any expectation of financial compensation in return.

 

Terrance Roberts

Roberts is founder and executive director of the Prodigal Son Initiative, which offers after-school programs for at-risk children such as tutoring, mentoring and education about healthy lifestyles.

The children are taken on field trips to meet community leaders, visit museums, attend sporting events or travel into the high country for activities.

Roberts also is an education liaison for the Denver Children's Home. He handles cases and works with the families of children who have truancy issues. Roberts also is the basketball coach for the Aurora Crush.

 

Tom Robinson and Cleo Parker Robinson

For almost 40 years Tom Robinson has served without salary as the business manager of a Denver cultural resource — Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.

His dedication, prudent leadership and fiscal management have helped the company develop into one of the leading cultural arts institutions of Denver. While serving as the volunteer business manager for the company, Robinson earned his living as a math teacher at Regis Jesuit High School for 31 years.

Currently, Robinson is an assistant commissioner for the Colorado High School Activities Association where he works with coaches from all sports and variety of music and speech competitions.

The company is an internationally lauded contemporary dance ensemble because of its dancers and the vision of the other half of this team: creative director Cleo Parker Robinson. Not only does it distinguish itself through excellent artistry, but also through a longtime commitment to grass-roots arts education. The organization has supported a dance school and a variety of community education projects over the course of its nearly four decades of existence. She founded the company in 1970 and has attempted since to educate audiences about the rich heritage and ancestral gifts on which this predominately African American ensemble draws. Project Self-Discovery demonstrates her commitment to youth outreach by providing the arts to at-risk Denver youth as an alternative to gang activity and substance abuse.

 

Anthony Romero

As a member of the Knights of Columbus, Romero goes out in the community every year to sell Tootsie Rolls to help mentally challenged children — and each year he sells the most in his council.

He visits sick children at Denver Health Medical Center during the holidays. He has delivered candy at Easter dressed as the Easter Bunny, at Halloween as a clown and at Christmas with reindeer ears and helpers as elves.

Romero solicits donations of toys from stores such as Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target at Christmas so children have something to open. He has made such an impact at Denver Health that this past year he was named their Donor of the Year.

 

Lucy Roucis

Roucis already was an inspiration as a regular with Phamaly (Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actor's League) — a performer and an acting coach. She handled those roles despite the challenges — especially the involuntary shaking — caused by Parkinson's disease.

But in late July she underwent a radical procedure — what some are calling the equivalent of putting a pacemaker in her brain — and so far the surgery, which could eliminate most of her symptoms and need for medication, has been a success.

 

Dawn Russell

Russell moved in 1999 to Denver, the home of ADAPT, and quickly became closely involved with the group.

Today ADAPT, the largest disability-rights group in the country, is working on national legislation: the Community Choice Act. The act would give people with disabilities a real choice about where they live and receive services, as they do in Colorado. Russell just finished a five-year term (two as chairman) on the Denver Commission for People with Disabilities, which was established in 1978 to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. She owns The How To Place, a resource center for the community.

 

Toni Saiber

After almost dying from complications of anorexia nervosa, Saiber decided to help those suffing from similar eating disorders. In 2004, with assistance from Dr. Ken Weiner and Ellen Hart Peña, Saiber founded the Eating Disorder Foundation, a nonprofit with the mission of helping prevent and eliminate eating disorders.

By 2007, she and her volunteers educated nearly 20,000 elementary, junior high and high school students statewide, and helped to establish support groups in Denver and other communities for individuals and their family members. All on an annual budget of $25,000.

 

Joyce Schlose

Schlose has worked closely with underserved individuals for nearly 30 years, moving from a temporary employment agency to the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and now Goodwill Industries.

At the chamber, knowing that small businesses made up nearly 98 percent of employer firms in Colorado, she headed up one of the leading small business training programs in the nation.

As a vice president of Goodwill Industries in the Workforce Development Division, Schlose continues to help underserved populations, such as adults moving from welfare to work and programs that address the needs of people with developmental disabilities. Perhaps her biggest success involves career training programs in 29 area high schools, where Goodwill served 19,581 students last year. While many of these students are at-risk for dropping out, for those in Goodwill's programs, the senior graduation rate is 98 percent.

 

Toni Schmid

As the original executive director of The Gathering Place, which opened in 1986, Schmid and another social worker aimed to create a "safe haven for women and children during times of poverty or homelessness." In 1997, she partnered with chef Jane Berryman to found Work Options for Women to provide under- or unemployed women skills to become gainfully employed. WOW began serving lunches to 30 people a day and has since spent a decade helping low-income women work their way into self-sufficiency through a 16-week culinary skills training program and social services support.

The program graduates 45 students a year into steady jobs, and they enjoy a nearly 90 percent one-year job-retention rate. Students and staff serve more than 800 meals to city employees and visitors through a contract with the city; in early 2009, they plan to open Cafe WOW on Curtis Street to serve breakfast and lunch.

 

Gwen Scott

Scott's career began as a public school teacher in Kansas City, Kan., before moving on to teach in Denver. When she began working toward her teaching degree in Denver, the schools were segregated, and she was allowed to teach only African-American students.

After her 1986 retirement from Denver Public Schools, Scott became facilitator-teacher for A World of Difference, a diversity-training program administered in Colorado schools. After 10 years at that, she worked a five-year adjunct-professorship in the Teacher Education Program at University of Denver.

The community activist has served on many boards, among them Denver Sister Cities and Colorado Center for the Book. She's also earned honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award in 1997.

 

Dara Shalette and Ted Wood-Prince

Dara Shalette began volunteering at Denver Municipal Animal Shelter in 2003. In short order, she "volunteered" her husband, Ted Wood-Prince, and they became two of the best friends a four-legged critter could have.

The couple started "Best Pets Colorado" a nonprofit mobile adoption service that uses a truck to take cats and dogs from the shelter to farmers markets and other outdoor events around the metro area. Since 2006 they have adopted out more than 450 pets and arranged transfers for nearly 250.

When the shelter's washing machine broke down, they donated a washer and dryer. When the off-leash dog park opened behind the shelter, volunteers were still walking dogs in the parking lot because there was no way to separate off-leash dogs from shelter dogs. So Shalette and Wood-Prince paid to install a fence and gates so volunteers could walk shelter dogs on a natural surface.

 

Betsy Stapp

Stapp began volunteering at Broadway Assistance Center in 1997 and took over as executive director in 2002. She has since increased the services to include a free medical clinic every Thursday night open to anyone.

By providing essential medical service onsite, the center and its partners are reducing unnecessary emergency room visits to Denver Health, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars. The center also provides free mammography screening.

In an average week, the center feeds 300 to 400 people, mostly homeless, provides clothing to 100 to 150 people and medical assistance to 40 to 60 people. Besides working with other local assistance agencies, the center relies heavily on donations (food, clothing, money) and volunteers.

 

Nicholas and Shane Sterner

Nicholas Sterner, left, was born in Denver in 1961 and graduated Denver's East High School in 1980; by the mid '80s he had worked in various industries and in 1992 started a medical billing business. His son, Nicholas "Shane" Sterner was born in 1984 and now attends Community College of Denver.

In 2007, while completing the Denver Rescue Mission's New Life Program, the two recruited and trained 15 men from Denver Rescue Mission to run the Post-News Colorado Colfax Marathon.

That success inspired their AIR Foundation (Activity Inspired Rehabilitation). AIR's mission is to address homelessness and addiction in the community through endurance-running programs that support and inspire incremental athletic accomplishment and a positive connection with the community.

 

Grace Stiles

Shortly after retiring from teaching in 1995, Stiles rescued two dilapidated Victorian frame buildings in the Five Points neighborhood with the dream of opening the Stiles African American Heritage Center in Denver's original African American community.

Stiles used her own resources to purchase and renovate the buildings and in 1998 saw her dream realized. The center emphasizes positive contributions of African-Americans in Colorado with guided tours, cultural exhibits and artifacts.

In 2004, Stiles received the Dana Crawford Award in historic preservation from Colorado Preservation Inc., for significant contributions in saving Colorado's built heritage. Also in 2004, she received the Stellar Woman Award, presented to three Colorado women who are over 70 years of age and have lived extraordinary lives.

 

James Todd

As a young doctor, Todd had seen eight cases over two years in which children suffered from similar unexplained symptoms that proved lethal for seven of those patients. By the eighth patient in 1978, Todd realized the illness was caused by staphylococcus bacteria.

After helping the patient survive, he named the illness and published his findings. While toxic shock syndrome still exists, doctors now can detect and diagnose it quickly, saving countless lives.

A professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine since 1985, he has trained a generation of physicians and conducted extensive research into the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial diseases.

He's also a champion of immunizations and health care coverage for children.

 

Les Townsend

During his 30 years as a Denver resident, Townsend has enhanced the quality of life for thousands of business owners by promoting access for minority businesses in corporations and government.

Townsend is a team member of the RTD Small Business Opportunity Office team, providing outreach, business development, services and community relations liaison services for the FasTracks DBE/SBE and workforce programs. He's also involved with the FasTracks bonding program, the first of its kind nationwide to be implemented by a transit agency, which enhances the competitiveness of small and minority-owned contractors.

Townsend also is an active member of the Commission of Minority Transportation Officials and works with the African American Contractors to increase the capacity and capabilities of small contractors.

 

Harry Tuft

In 1960 Tuft took a break from his architectural studies in Philadelphia to visit Colorado for some skiing. He found a job at The Holy Cat in Georgetown as a dishwasher, busboy, waiter, bartender, janitor and (if there was a lull) singer in the bar.

He met Hal Neustaedter, owner of The Exodus folk club in Denver, who suggested that he look into starting a folklore center in Denver.

Tuft opened the Denver Folklore Center in 1962 and has kept it open since, in the process becoming the godfather of folk music in Denver, thanks to his work at the South Pearl Street location and role in the birth of the Swallow Hill Music Association.

Although much of his time goes to the folklore center, he also has taught for many years and performed often, including in the band Grubstake.

 

Alicia Valladolid-Cuaron

Raised in El Paso, Texas, by Mexican immigrant parents who instilled in her a love of education and community service, Valladolid-Cuarón was one of the first Latinas in Colorado and her family to receive a doctorate.

After moving to Denver in 1972, she was a coordinator of Denver Head Start, where she developed and implemented the first bilingual Head Start program.

Later, where others saw a dilapidated Catholic School, she helped create a Catholic parish ministry dedicated to providing services and adult education to Spanish speaking families. In 2002, Centro Bienestar became a ministry of the Centro San Juan Diego of the Archdiocese of Denver and today serves more than 10,000 families annually.

 

Sean VanBerschot

The executive director of Teach For America-Denver faced these stark statistics when he arrived from New Mexico: 75 percent of Denver Public Schools students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch; 81 percent of Latino males do not graduate from high school; and recent data revealed that only 9 percent of DPS students scored an A or a B on a standardized literature exam.

Without an established infrastructure, the tasks of recruiting, fundraising and coordinating with DPS fell solely on VanBerschot. Because at first he had to split time between Albuquerque and Denver, it was not uncommon for him to work 80-hour weeks.

In the course of a year, he grew the operating budget by 129 percent to nearly $2 million, which has allowed TFA-Denver to grow.

For the 2007-08 school year, 56 TFA-Denver teachers reached approximately 4,260 underprivileged students; in 2008-09, 127 will reach approximately 9,350 students; in 2009-10, it is projected that 135 teachers will reach 11,475 students (about 16 percent of DPS students).

 

Rich Von Luhrte

The influence of the president of Denver-based RNL is felt throughout the Denver metro area because of his ability to re-envision and revitalize areas in transition while preserving the character and fabric of neighborhoods.

Von Luhrte, an expert on transit-oriented development, has a longstanding relationship with RTD. The project architect for the 16th Street Mall when it was built 25 years ago, he now serves on the 16th Street Mall Task Force with the Downtown Denver Partnership, looking at the next 25 years.

Other Denver projects Von Luhrte and his company, a worldwide design firm, have been involved with include: Civic Center Master Plan, Coors Field Urban Design Plan, Central Platte Valley Master Plan, Cherry Creek Master Plan (prior to the mall being built), Ocean Journey Aquarium and a variety of other buildings and projects.

 

Dave Walstrom

East Colfax today is a reflection of the determination of Walstrom, who has directed Colfax on the Hill's efforts to bring vitality, safety and economic opportunity to a street that was suffering for many years.

For more than 15 years, Walstrom has worked with city officials and agencies, community leaders and organizations, business owners and residents to make East Colfax a more inviting place.

Walstrom has persevered to help bring about the Colfax Marathon, development of new urban commercial and residential buildings and a sense of energy, opportunity and well-being to East Colfax.

Walstrom also worked tirelessly with the community and city in forming Police District 6 and locating it on East Colfax. He has served many years on the board of Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods and with the Capitol Hill People's Fair.

 

Chip Walton

Walton founded Curious Theatre Co. in the Golden Triangle in 1997 and immediately made it a hot spot for quality live theater, particularly world premieres.

He is the incoming president of the National New Play Network and recently completed a Livingston Fellowship from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation.

Last summer he was invited to participate as a director in the Kennedy Center's MFA Playwrighting Festival in Washington, D.C.

Walton recently agreed to contribute the company's theater and its first playwright-in-residence, Jennifer Fawcett, as a coordinator for the Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region in August. And the theater recently made a move that suggests it will be around by purchasing its home at 1080 Acoma St.

 

William Allen West

On April 1, 1975, the Curtis Park neighborhood was recognized as a National Historic District.

The application, submitted by West, represents the passion and vision that he has exhibited for more than three decades of preserving the fabric of this neighborhood.

West has written two books about the diverse collection of Victorian houses that make up Curtis Park, Denver's oldest neighborhood.

He's spent thousands of hours on letters, meetings and vigilance that assured discussions and decisions leading to the successes of the neighborhood.

In 1956 the neighborhood was zoned to support the expansion of downtown into residential Curtis Park neighborhood. While the development never came to fruition, the zoning policy has never been corrected, so West has been active in rezoning to protect the neighborhood.

 

Roz Wheeler-Bell

The founder and longtime executive director of Community Health Education Services empowered thousands of middle school and high school students by giving them the knowledge and skills they need to make sound choices to enhance their physical, emotional and intellectual well-being.

By exposing these youngsters to the realities and importance of pursuing prudent reproductive health care, Wheeler-Bell set them on a course that secured a stable and promising future. More than 4,000 young people benefited from the free classes, small groups and mentors that CHES provided.

Currently, Wheeler-Bell works as coordinator of Collaborative Education and Preventive Care at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. She has been on the board of the City Park Alliance for four years and was that group's chair for two years. During her tenure, the alliance played a key role in restoring City Park's historic electric fountain and funding the Mile High Loop, a 3.2 mile running, walking and biking track.

 

Keith White

White is the co-founder and principal artist of Your Name in Graffiti, a graffiti-style company doing customized murals and youth arts programs.

As a key participant in the mayor's Graffiti Summit, he took an active role in the subsequent Anti-Graffiti Prevention Task Force. White launched a weekly graffiti art program in Globeville, working with local schools to provide urban arts instruction that discourages vandalism.

He created the Adopt-A-Mural program to raise private support to create large artworks in Denver that allow area youth to participate in productive arts experiences.

 

Hazel Whitsett

The then-staffer for former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart co-founded the Northeast Women's Center in Denver in 1987 and has been its life force ever since.

When donations began declining after Sept. 11, Whitsett made painful cutbacks. And for the past two years, she has given nearly all of her $40,000 yearly salary to the center to keep it going, so that it might help more than 250 women a year get their GEDs and find work, among other services.

The recipient of the 2006 Dr. Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award, Whitsett embodies King's legacy of service and sacrifice.

 

Sid Wilson

Wilson is president of A Private Guide, a group tour and event transportation service company based in Denver since 1991. The company specializes in cultural and heritage tours, city and mountain sightseeing, skiing, hiking, horseback riding, river rafting, narrow-gauge railroads, high country festivals and more. Wilson is past board chairman and one of the founding members of the Beckwourth Mountain Club. He is a Denver Public Library commissioner, is on the board of the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Mayor's African American Commission, and other volunteer efforts.

 

Woody Witte

Witte loves creating solutions that, in turn, spawn new companies: Woody's Wheel Works for motorcycles since 1973, Enabling Technologies for handicapped skiers since 1984 and Da Vinci Designs for hand-built tandem bikes since 1997. He sponsors aspiring racers, both handicapped skiers and motorcyclists, and in 1976 created the curriculum and workplace for the Cycle and Small Engine program at DPS's new Career Education Center.

An advocate for women's rights, he hired one of the first female motorcycle mechanics in town and sponsored the first woman road racing champion in Colorado. He has hired immigrants, the physically challenged, recovering addicts and the learning disabled. When North Denver was hit with a burglary and theft epidemic in the early '80s, he organized the neighbors and became the Crime Watch program captain. The effort was so effective Mayor Wellington Webb sent a letter of commendation for the 800 percent drop in crime in the Witter-Colfield subdivision.

 

John Wright

The president of the Asian Chamber of Commerce in Denver also has served on the board of Denver Sister Cities International since 2001. Wright visited India earlier this year and, during the trip, stopped in Chennai, devastated by a tsunami in 2004.

While there, Wright met with "Pappa" Vidyakar, founder of My Helping Hands, an organization administering funds for the reconstruction of Chennai's tsunami- ravaged areas.

At the meeting arranged by the Denver Chennai committee and Denver Sister Cities International, Wright expressed DSCI's interest to donate $65,000.