The two-story red-brick building that is home to the Colfax Community Network in Aurora is nowhere near luxurious, but it’s a far cry from the life many of its clients face every day.
The motels that dot Colfax Avenue have seen better days on what was once a main thoroughfare through Denver. Many are now home to a never-ending parade of families who are barely getting by. Workers from CCN troll a dozen or so of these motels, searching for children and their families who need assistance.
Maggie Tidwell is executive director of CCN, which since 1999 has provided information, services and programs to families who live a fluid life on the city’s longest avenue. They come and they go.
Heartbreaking stories land on CCN’s doorstep every day. Some third-graders who visit the center have been to as many as eight schools in their young lives. Children in its programs are required to attend school and are picked up each day after school by a CCN volunteer.
Sometimes, Tidwell said, it’s hard to find the children at all. There have been instances, she said, where families were there in the morning and gone that afternoon.
“We can’t get to the kids whose parents don’t want us to know what’s going on. Most are working parents, making minimum wage and spending $180 a week on rent. We help people find jobs; sometimes we help pay their rent.”
Horizons for the motel dwellers are limited. Some have been laid off. Others have devastating medical bills. It’s what Tidwell calls “the motel trap”: “Once they’re in, they can’t get out of it.”
One young girl, who cared for five siblings, announced bravely that she had decided she wouldn’t get pregnant until she turned 15.
“If you don’t get what you need as child, you have a big hole in your heart,” said Tidwell.
Tidwell began Colfax Community Network six years ago with one employee – herself – eight kids and $5,000. In 2004, CCN served 1,301 residents of motels on east and west Colfax, including 248 children, with a budget of $396,984 – most of which came from foundations and private individuals – and 12 full- or part-time workers. Only $12,883 came from government sources.
The organization is seeking funding this year from the Post-News Season to Share campaign.
Inside the tidy CCN headquarters in Aurora First Presbyterian Church, decorations are minimal. One large room is divided into areas that serve eight programs. There are spaces for the access-to-services group, parents-tot support group, afterschool and summer-camp programs, housing partnerships, girls and boys basketball, emergency services, girls support group and, one of the most popular, family nights.
On one wall is a large quilt, each panel carefully made by those who have come for help. An especially poignant one reads: “Just because someone is without a home does not mean that person is different from any of us.”
On a nearby table is a terrarium that holds a single crab, the center’s only pet. Taped to the wall behind it is a note written in a child’s scrawl: “Dere crab: You ar the best pet ever. Love Connie.”
There is one “luxury,” a row of seven computers donated last year by HealthOne Alliance. The kids adore them.
Like the setting and the center’s programs, these things bring a sense of community, continuity and, not incidentally, belonging, to the families who come and go, often as quickly as the characters in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
