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Week of January 12, 2023
JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 10 | LIFE: PAGE 12 | CALENDAR: PAGE 15 | SPORTS: PAGE 16
VOLUME 18 | ISSUE 30
Jefferson County nonprofits receive unexpected $350K in grants from Community First Foundation
City of Arvada extends micromobility pilot program through 2023 Shareable electric scooters sticking around while city team gathers data BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
on Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute peoples’ histories. The museum wants to use the ethnography as a “scaffold to build upon” and not a lone project, Richie stated. He hoped to use the grant to bring tribal leaders to Golden for a site consultation visit and perhaps start an ethnobotanical garden. “This means a great deal to us,” Richie said of the funding. “It’s an investment to continue doing that work. … It’s a much larger commitment that we’re making in Golden to elevate Indigenous voices and communities.” Meanwhile, the Lakewood Arts Council and Center for the Arts Evergreen both plan to use grant funds for educational programming. The two received $13,000 and $30,000, respectively. “It was the perfect way to end the year,” Nierenberg said. Lessem felt similarly, describing how the Lakewood Arts Council just
Shareable micromobility vehicles are sticking around Arvada for at least the next year. The City of Arvada extended its micromobility pilot program — which began with Bird scooters coming to town in 2022 — for the rest of 2023. The extended program will include changes to the vehicle’s service area — restricted to one mile around each G-line stop in the first iteration — and flexibility for vendors to adjust e-bike and e-scooter numbers in their fleet since the city has not seen e-bikes mobilized yet. Arvada’s Manager of Mobility and Planning Innovation John Firouzi said at the end of the year, the city team will make a presentation to city council containing data collected by Firouzi’s team and a public survey. At that point, Director of Public Works Jaqueline Rhoades will decide the future of micromobility in Arvada. The pilot program allows for a maximum of two vendors to operate within city limits. Firouzi said that Bird is intending to continue with the program and is in the process of updating their permits. Firouzi added that Lime — another popular e-bike and e-scooter vendor — has begun an application to operate in Arvada. Firouzi said the city team will gauge feedback from vendors to decide how to expand the service area. “We’re going to geographically expand the areas incrementally, to see if there’s demand from the public and what the usage looks
SEE GRANTS, P3
SEE EXTENSION, P5
At left, Raelene Whiteshield does a jingle dress dance as members of Cozad Jrs, background right, play the drum and sing during the Oct. 2 Autumn Fest at Golden History Museum & Park. The museum recently received a grant from Community First Foundation FILE PHOTO BY CORINNE WESTEMAN toward its work with Indigenous communities. BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Nonprofits across Jefferson County are starting 2023 with a little more money in the bank. Over the holiday season, Arvadabased Community First Foundation awarded 18 organizations $350,000 total in grants. The funds will go toward furthering art, science and culture-based projects that promote civic engagement. Several recipients said the funds were a complete surprise. Nathan Richie of Golden History Museum & Park said grants like this typically have a very involved application process. However, the museum didn’t apply for it. Instead, CFF reached out to the museum based on other grant applications. “This never happens in the grant world,” Center for the Arts Evergreen’s Lisa Nierenberg said. Lakewood Arts Council’s Dorothy Lessem described how she and her colleagues “looked at each other and
thought, ‘Is this real?’” when they first heard about it. Community First Foundation confirmed the grants ranged from $700 to $30,000. It partnered with the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District to identify Jeffco nonprofits actively working to increase inclusivity in the county. SCFD shared grant applications it’d received, and CFF worked quickly to award the grants before Jan. 1. “The information we needed was already in the grant applications nonprofits submitted to SCFD,” Jaime Aguilar, program officer for Community First Foundation, said in a Dec. 23 press release. “ … Now, we can support civic engagement through diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in our community without the added burden for nonprofits to submit a new grant application.” For instance, the Golden History Museum received $26,000 toward its work with Indigenous communities. It recently completed an American Indian Ethnography, mainly focused