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Week of December 15, 2022
DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 4
Celebrating sobriety through comradery Denver continues work to meet immediate sheltering need for migrants TATIANA FLOWERS AND DELANEY NELSON THE COLORADO SUN
Jewish Sober Connections’ first event, a pumpkin-carving party, took place on Oct. 25.
COURTESY PHOTOS
BY BRUCE GOLDBERG SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Denverite Dylan Boxer has a friend who is in recovery from drug and alcohol addictions. “He would wake up in the morning, and instead of thinking about `where am I going to live (or) get food,’ it was, `where will I get drugs today,’” Boxer said. Boxer’s friend now is sober and in the tail-end of his treatment, which includes therapy and counseling. “He (has) been clean for a while, and is adapting and adjusting to this new way of life,” Boxer said. “But he’s noticed a lack of sober activities.” That’s when Boxer and a group of others realized the need for Jewish SEE CELEBRATING, P6
Arye Schwartz, left, and sister Shira Schwartz are two of the founders of the new group, Jewish Sober Connections.
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 11
Some of the roughly 120 migrants who arrived in downtown Denver in recent days used social media to plan the trip themselves, Denver city leaders said on Dec. 8 as they pledged to help the people find long-term shelter. The mayor’s deputy chief of staff said the migrants were not sent to Colorado by another state’s governor. Officials, however, are still trying to learn more where the migrants came from, including the origin point of a bus that delivered roughly 90 people to the city in the evening on Dec. 5. “There was sort of an informal gathering on social media among those folks themselves,” said Evan Dreyer, the Denver mayor’s deputy chief of staff. “This does not appear to be anything that was organized by another government entity to direct people to Denver. We do not think that was the case — no evidence of that.” Denver leaders held a news conference on Dec. 8 to answer questions from reporters and offer updates after migrants arrived in the city earlier this week. Dreyer called it a spike in an otherwise steady stream of arrivals in recent months, about 300 people in all. On Dec. 7, the city stood up an emergency shelter at a city-owned SEE SHELTER, P5
WARM SPOT FOR WINTER PRODUCE Packing container to bring farming downtown
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