Category: Charitable Activities

International Rescue Committee (IRC) Honors Judy Denison of Golden

Judy Denison, 86, was honored this Wednesday by the International Rescue Committee for her indefatigable work obtaining free furniture and housewares for virtually every refugee resettled in Colorado by the IRC since 2020.

From her arrival in Golden 35 years ago, Judy volunteered in countless ways to serve Golden and ultimately to serve refugees, reaching out to involve the rest of us in every possible way.

Her first civic involvement took the form of co-founding Save the Mesas (from being developed by Nike) and joining the fight against ramming a beltway through Golden. She created the “Golden Newsletter” to keep over 1,000 email subscribers informed of that and other campaign/issues as well as the activities of virtually every Golden organization.

Judy’s first local refugee effort was the creation of the Golden Relief Group, which helped seven families who survived Hurricane Katrina.

For the IRC, she used her 2-car garage to store furniture donations for refugees from Afghanistan and a dozen other countries. Golden Real Estate was proud to make our moving truck available for transferring those items to IRC’s warehouse until Judy’s greatest collaboration, which is with CK & Done, an estate sale company. That company donates the unsold furniture and furnishings from estate sales and delivers them to IRC’s warehouse.

The IRC was not the first organization to recognize Judy for her voluntarism and civic mindedness.  In 2012 the Golden Landmarks Association honored her as a “living landmark.”

Space does not allow for a sufficient listing of Judy’s contributions to Golden and our planet, but these links for both those honors provide a lot more details:

https://www.rescue.org/announcement/spotlight-judy-denison-0

http://goldenlandmarks.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2012-Judy-Denison-1.pdf

Judy’s prep school, Northfield Mt. Herman, did a podcast interview with her. Here’s the link for that:

Would you help us stock the shelves of Golden Rotary’s ‘Miracle Shop’?

The Miracle Shop, housed at Calvary Church in downtown Golden, is a pop-up holiday toy store where financially struggling parents, grandparents, and guardians in the Golden area can shop for the perfect gifts for the children they love.  The store is not a handout. Instead, customers choose what to pay for the toys they have selected…..no questions asked. Sometimes payment is pocket change and sometimes $20 or $30.   The goal is to provide an opportunity for caregivers to feel empowered by their ability to take care of themselves. They tell us they are excited about the opportunity to choose gifts for their children and that paying something feels better than receiving a handout.

Toy Donations will be accepted at Golden Real Estate‘s office, 1214 Washington Ave., Golden, from Nov 25 to Dec 9. The Miracle Shop will be open on December 14th-16th.

In addition, toys may be purchased on our Amazon Wish List and delivered directly to Santa’s Workshop…. go to TheMiracleShop.org   Cash donations can be made on the website, too, are tax-deductible, and always appreciated.

We sincerely hope you will support The Miracle Shop. The difference you will make is real.

We Want to Help Fire Victims Who Want to Relocate, Not Rebuild

If someone you know lost their home in last week’s fires and decides to relocate rather than rebuild, have them call us. Golden Real Estate will rebate 75% of our earned commission to any buyer who lost their home and all their furnishings in the fire, so they can use that money to buy new furnishings. Email Jim@GoldenRealEstate.com for more information.

You can donate, too, at www.CommFound.org.

Up for Growth Promotes Affordable Housing and ‘Accessible Growth’

Up for Growth Action describes itself as the only federal advocacy campaign focused solely on breaking down the barriers to affordable and market-rate housing.

“Housing was on the ballot on November 3,” said Mike Kingsella, executive director of the organization. “The next Congress and new administration cannot afford to ignore the immediate and long-term challenges of housing in the United States, because we have a housing shortage that affects nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives. We will be on the front lines of advancing a bipartisan, pro-housing agenda that increases access to high-quality housing in vibrant neighborhoods at prices all Americans can afford,” he said. Their work “supports the creation of affordable homes, jobs, and transit-oriented development — all critical to our country’s economic recovery and growth.”

Up for Growth Action believes that America’s housing crisis is driven by two separate, but interrelated challenges: the nation’s increasing income inequality that prevents widespread access to quality and affordable housing, and a shortage of homes, requiring proactive legislation. The organization focuses on policies that enable communities to build housing needed to meet the country’s 7.3-million-home shortage, as shown by Up for Growth’s research . 

“Improving housing accessibility and affordability across the full spectrum of American society is critical in transforming the communities in which we live, work, play and invest,” said UP for Growth’s Chuck Leitner. “Driving the real estate investment and operating industry’s deeper engagement in addressing these and other housing issues is fundamental in the process and is why our mission is so important.”

Up for Growth Action supports policies focused on tearing down systemic barriers to housing development such as exclusionary zoning, and increasing access to capital for affordable housing development. The organization promotes what it calls “accessible growth” – prioritizing housing production in areas of high economic opportunity, areas that leverage investments in transportation and infrastructure, and in areas where jobs already exist.

Though a relatively new organization, Up for Growth Action already boasts progress in enacting its legislative agenda. In my Oct. 15th column I wrote about its YIMBY (Yes in my Backyard) proposal that was passed by the US House of Representatives but stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The incoming Biden-Harris administration has already outlined a comprehensive housing plan that is aligned with Up for Growth Action, including a focus on reducing exclusionary zoning to increase housing stock, direct investment in housing, and recognizing the relationship between where people live and their wellbeing.

3D Printing Is Being Used to Build Houses for the Homeless With ‘Lavacrete’ Walls

An Austin, Texas, technology company named Icon was the winner of the “general excellence” category in this year’s World Changing Ideas Awards by Fast Company for their development of a 3D printer for building houses.

Their Vulcan II machine is already at work building a neighborhood of homes for Austin’s homeless population and building homes in Mexico for that country’s poor population currently living in shacks. Below is a picture of one of those Mexican homes and a closeup showing how Icon’s 3D printer works, applying layer upon layer of a specially designed mixture called Lavacrete. That product sets quickly enough that another layer can be applied on the machine’s next go-round.

All the walls of a home can be poured in 24 hours spread out over two or three days. The framing of windows and doors and construction of a wooden roof is then done using, when possible, local workers who get on-the-job training, learning skills they can apply in other jobs.

Lavacrete is a propriety adaptation of concrete which overcomes many of the shortcomings of concrete, especially in terms of aging. Because the walls are solid (no room for ducts), the homes are heated and cooled using my favorite method — heat pump mini-splits — which are also far more economical than gas forced air furnaces.

The Mexican project is in a rural area near the southern city of Nacajuca under a partnership with New Story, an international non-profit whose mission is to “pioneer solutions to end global homelessness.”

I remember seeing TV footage showing Icon’s 3D printing machine at work. Prior to that, I attended a presentation by New Story at the Rotary Club of Golden, which, as I recall, joined Rotary International in providing financial support. I am proud to be a financial supporter myself, and you can do so too at www.NewStoryCharity.org.  

3D printing of homes makes sense. I have seen how 3D printers can build various products applying layer upon layer of resin as instructed by a computer program. As with those table-top machines, all that’s needed to build the interior and exterior walls of a home is a larger flat surface (a concrete slab) and a massively larger printer to float above it. Taking the process to yet a higher level, Icon has successfully built the walls of three side-by-side homes simultaneously in Austin, which is impressive and, of course, more cost effective. Here’s an aerial view of 3D printing at work:

Partnering with local non-profits and using local materials and laborers, New Story delivers its fully finished homes free to the Mexicans it is serving, but I can see it being practical in our country to offer such homes with low-cost mortgages and nominal down payments to the homeless or working poor. 

The homes built by Icon for the Austin non-profit Mobile Loaves & Fishes were permitted by that city. When fully built out, their Community First Village will house an estimated 480 formerly homeless individuals, representing 40% of that city’s chronically homeless population.