A room at The Crossing, a northside Denver Rescue Mission facility for people coming out of homelessness, is as Bronco as the basement of just about any fan in town.
Blue-seated chairs branded with the familiar Broncos stallion on the backs encircle football-shaped tables. Photos of jersied Broncos laughing it up with children at Invesco Field at Mile High line the walls in frames of blue and orange matting.
But the newly finished Broncos Youth Center isn’t as much a room for fans as it is a room for optimism. Dozens of children struggling out of homelessness will gather there to read, use computers that once served elite fans at Invesco’s suites and, perhaps, look up – way up – to a visiting Broncos football player and think of better days to come.
“This is a place of hope,” said Cindy Galloway Kellogg, the Broncos vice president of community development. “For all these children go through, hope is not at the top of their list. We want to help break that cycle of homelessness.”
The youth center is part of a three-year, $150,000 commitment by the football organization to help the Rescue Mission in its efforts to move people into self-sufficiency. The Crossing, a one-time motel in the industrial area of East Smith Road near Quebec Street and Interstate 70, serves more than 480 people, some families and some not, through a variety of in-residence programs. The desired result is for each person to have permanent housing within two years.
A grand opening today focuses on the completion of The Crossing’s piece of a $12.5 million renovation campaign at three Mission facilities, which includes improved living facilities, playgrounds, meeting rooms and resources such as the youth center.
Several Broncos and their families, including Champ Bailey and Ebenezer Akuban, are committed to helping various Rescue Mission projects such as The Crossing, Kellogg said.
“We’ve had a great deal of success with the Broncos’ Boys and Girls Club in Montbello and want to replicate that synergy,” Kellogg said. “Fighting homelessness and hunger, youth and health, are core initiatives in our platform.”
Renovations to several rooms at The Crossing were sponsored by 18 local businesses and organizations, including the Broncos, Rescue Mission spokeswoman Greta Walker said. The Broncos also donated 50 computers to The Crossing, eight of them for the youth center.
The team has had an eight- year relationship with the Rescue Mission, providing holiday meals and gifts that players bestow on families they’ve adopted.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
